


Hymn of Axiom

by atmilliways, Tifaria



Series: The Breaking Light [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angel OC (Good Omens), Demon OC (Good Omens), First Kiss, First Time, God deadnames Crowley exactly once, God makes an appearance, Other, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Questioning the nature of Free Will, Quote: We're On Our Own Side (Good Omens), Rainbows are important, Recipe included, References to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, ineffable husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 46,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22534972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/atmilliways, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tifaria/pseuds/Tifaria
Summary: The Apocalypse has come and gone, and the only thing that could possibly make that more disconcerting is God Herself offering Crowley forgiveness. Except now he’s not only rejected that offer, but also seized it as a beacon of hope that he can finally be honest with Aziraphale about how he feels… But honest about the fact that he just closed the door on his chance at redemption forever? Not so much.Still, if a demon and an angel can be together without one Rising or the other Falling, it raises a lot of new questions about the nature of free will, what rainbows actually mean in context, and what humans were put on Earth for in the first place.(Heavily influenced by songs “The Hymn of Acxiom” and “The Breaking Light” by Vienna Teng.)
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Breaking Light [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610950
Comments: 35
Kudos: 69
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. Your Artesian Source

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley is rudely awakened by an extremely unexpected visitor. A never-makes-public-appearances-anymore visitor, who nevertheless has deigned to enter his flat for a chat.

The most peculiar thing happens at the onset of spring, just as the first drizzle of the season begins to fall tentatively over London. In his flat, Crowley jerks awake after only seven or eight years of snoozing when he'd meant to give the entire decade a hard pass. His eyes remain closed, his breathing still slow—from the outside, there's hardly so much as a twitch to indicate his waking. Inwardly he is sharp and alert, much as a part of him really, really wants to get back to the nice dream he was just having.

Crowley's flat is all stark shades of gray and very sparsely furnished; he never planned on spending much waking time here, and usually doesn't. It has exactly one bedroom, which contains exactly one chair. Someone, according to Crowley's supernaturally keen awareness of his personal space, is sitting in that chair, and there's an uncomfortable prickle of warmth through his cocoon of blankets. He feels _watched_ , and knows it has to have been what woke him. Caught under the attention of something . . . _holy_.

Much holier than Aziraphale, who he's had six thousand years to get used to. Holier than any of the other angels Crowley can recall encountering while wearing Aziraphale's body in Heaven.

The warmth burns, actually, but he has distant, older-than-the-world memories of when it hadn't.

* * *

_Before the Beginning, things had been different. There had been neither light nor darkness, neither good nor evil, neither up nor down. Even Heaven had yet to be established, or at least yet to be given a name. There just_ **_was_** _._

_For a while, that was enough._

_Later, Crowley would say things like "sauntered vaguely downward," "the food hadn't been that good lately," and "I didn't have anything on for the rest of that afternoon," but this was before any of those concepts existed. He picked them up later and, without noticing, edited the details in after the fact._

_What really happened was this: a few angels, before they had been named as such, realized there was such a thing as_ **_could be_** _._

 _It was like the first shift before an avalanche. These were God's first creations, and She had not prepared them yet for the concept of linear time. As they began to speculate about_ **_could be_ ** _as a separate state from_ **_was_** _, they inadvertently carved what there was of creation into_ **_past_ ** _,_ **_present_ ** _, and_ **_future_** _. They began to grow afraid of not knowing what the future held. They recognized themselves as_ **_first_ ** _and realized that there would either be a_ **_next_ ** _or a_ **_last_** _—that God's favor might not always be strictly theirs._

 _They saw where they were as_ **_Heaven_ ** _for the first time, and if there was a place they were then there must also be a place they weren't. Thus,_ **_Hell_ ** _was assumed into existence._

_Whether God had foreseen this happening is immaterial. As soon as there was Heaven and Hell, there was good and evil, there was up and down. There was somewhere, in short, to Fall._

_The Morningstar was the first to stand up and ask God how this_ **_could be_** _, and as the saying later went, what goes up must come down._

 _Then there were_ **_angels_ ** _and_ **_demons_** _._

_Later, the Lords of Hell would say things like, "we fought in the glorious revolution" and "we lost." These descriptions, too, were a product of hindsight._

_Falling is not a matter of simply asking why, or becoming preoccupied with what could be. This is what it is to Fall: the gut wrenching realization that no, you might_ not _really be enough, and if God could turn Her back on you then you_ ** _might as well do the same_** _._

 _They were still having trouble separating_ **_could be_ ** _from_ **_was_** _, you see. Later, with practice, it became easier to tell the difference, and the avalanche of demons into Hell slowed to a trickle, then a drip, and then stopped._

 _The last casualty of the so-called revolution had just enough time to think of itself as an angel. It saw, in a sense, "Lucifer and the guys" hurtling past on their way to Hell. It saw, and it thought, what a shame if God were to let this happen to whatever She created next. It thought,_ **_She could_** _. It forgot, for just an instant, that this didn't also mean that She might not._

 _And it Fell, its newly claimed_ **_angel_** _-ness burned abruptly away by the sparking, resentful ember of_ **_demon_ ** _in its heart._

* * *

Crowley remembers, reluctantly, and whimpers.

" **There's no need for that, Crowley.** "

The voice is gentle, kind, and ineffably calm. It fills his head in a way mere sounds don't and makes him feel incredibly small.

And naked. Don't forget naked. Nothing like being in the presence of the Almighty for feeling extremely lacking when not wearing clothes. Gathering what he can of the blankets and his dignity about himself, Crowley sits up and looks. There's no need to be cautious about it, no point in grabbing his sunglasses from the nightstand table; if he's about to be smote there's not really anything he can do about it.

God, being simultaneously everything and greater than the sum of creation, can appear any way She wants. At the moment, She looks like a middle-aged human woman with short curly hair and blonde highlights, long face and pointed chin, and grey eyes clearer than the first morning on Earth. He can just about meet Her gaze without wishing he didn't exist.

 _To Hell with it_ , Crowley thinks, pushing aside blankets and an ancient sense of loss that still goes much further than bone-deep. He snaps his fingers and his clothes and sunglasses materialize on him like a comforting second skin that, should he survive this experience, he's not sure he'll ever want to take off again.

"So," he manages to say. "Hi. It's been a while. You would be . . . God, was it?"

" **Got it in one**." She must have anticipated the attempt at playing it cool, because She is already smiling.

Crowley waits, trying not to fidget because it would ruin the facade. Surely the smiting will come soon, punishment for somehow throwing the Ineffable Plan off by some microscopic tick. It wasn't fair, but nothing had really felt fair since he'd Fallen.

Nothing happens.

Nothing happens some more.

Nothing continues to happen, and She just keeps on smiling. She, a being who, as a rule, doesn't make personal appearances. The urge to wreck the sanctified hush that fills his apartment is bubbling up in his chest— _demon_ , after all, with millennia worth of deeply ingrained bad habits. It's either say something or explode from nerves.

Crowley says, with barely any hysteria, "You ruined what could have been a very successful nap, I'll have you know."

He isn't angry until about halfway through the sentence, but by the last word he's absolutely furious. Why the Hell not? Panic, wrath . . . neither will make much of a difference in the face of divine judgement, and the anger is grounding. He might as well go out feeling more like himself.

" **I'm well aware** ," God replies patiently. " **Crowley. Don't you want to know why I'm here?** "

"No," Crowley snaps. "I want to know where you were when we were trying to keep the Anti-Christ from dessstroying your creation. Y'know, the whole 'testing them to destruction' thing? I know you heard me, you hear bloody everything!"

That is one thing he's definitely always hated. He _knows_ that She can still always hear, and not once had She ever replied. And now this? _This?_

"Why are you here, anyway?" he demands. It's not petulance, he tells himself firmly, it's just that after everything that's happened—literally, _everything_ —it's only right that he gets some answers. (As long as he can imagine that's true, maybe it will be.)

" **I'm here because you have a choice to make, Crowley**." God steeples Her fingers and rests Her chin on Her fingertips. It's disconcerting knowing that this is a being both equal to and greater than the sum of Everything, distilled into a relatively infinitesimal human shape that is, currently, sprawled in an uncomfortable chair in his flat with one ankle balanced on the opposite knee." **Did you know** ," She continues, " **that you're the only one of my fallen angels that still prays to me occasionally? It's very touching.** "

Crowley winces. "I do not!"

" **You _do_.** **And I quote: 'God, you listening? Show me a Great Plan.'** " She quirks an eyebrow. " **Not very formal, not very polite, but it still counts. I appreciate it, really. When you have something important to say, you absolutely speak your mind, which is more than I can say for more than half the angels in Heaven.** "

”Well . . . right. Because they just say whatever they think You want to hear because they're all scared shitless of Falling themselves." Again, it flies out of his mouth before he's fully thought through all the implications—but it's something he's often thought about Aziraphale, often accompanied by frustration, resignation, and exasperated fondness.

The thought of Aziraphale stings, even more than the presence of the Almighty, because he's sure that his mouth is about to get him obliterated and, unlike the day after the world failed to end, he hasn't had a chance to sneak in a just-in-case goodbye. Hasn't had a chance to say other things, important things about feeling a lot more than just fondness, but that's not new. Crowley crosses his arms defensively over his chest to communicate through basic human-shaped body language that he does not, will not, and is doing his best to convince himself that he has _never had_ any fondness for the Almighty.

Does God understand body language? She must. Technically, She created it.

God's smile flickers into one of genuine amusement, so maybe She understands it better than he does.

Crowley decides that now would be a great time to change the subject. "Look," he says with a scowl, "whatever you're here for, whatever this great, awesome choice you've come to tell me about is, get on with it. I don't have all eternity here."

Behind the fear of imminent destruction, though, is a niggling suspicion that it might be something even worse. Once he's thought of the possibility he can't _un_ -think it and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, a gaping sensation in his stomach. It makes him want to cringe and curse and, possibly, vomit. _She wouldn't_ , he thinks. Then with a pang he pictures Aziraphale's hopeful face, the soft _may you be forgiven_ in the angel's eyes even on occasions where he hasn't actually said it out loud. Isn't it what the Fallen are supposed to want? He's such a disappointment, both for Falling in the first place and then failing to want redemption.

" **You did a good thing, Crowley, by giving humans more time with this world. Of course, you painted a giant target on your back at the same time** ," God adds, and at least she has the decency not to sound pitying. It wasn't like he hadn't known what he was getting himself in for, more or less, from the moment he'd handed over the infant Adam and then headed straight for the nearest payphone to call Aziraphale.

In observance of Murphy's Law, the terrible suspicion that he knows what kind of offer is about to be laid out on the metaphorical table is in the process of metastasizing into a terrible certainty.

" **But not once in all of that did you pray to be spared from judgement or retribution. You prayed for others, instead. For the humans. For your friend, Aziraphale. That is what makes you worthy, Crowley, and always has.** "

Crowley sucks in a breath, like a swimmer in open ocean about to be swamped by a huge wave. He feels ready to bolt and somehow it's the mention of Aziraphale that shakes him the most. He _had_ prayed for him, hadn't he? Or at least wailed the loss of his best friend (best everything, really) up towards the bookshop's blackening ceiling as it burned, the plea of _please no_ not spoken or consciously thought but felt throughout his entire being. He feels indelibly cornered, but he isn't going to get out of this one with a bluff and a quick dash through the telephone system.

And then God drops the proverbial earthquake into the seabed that sets off the tsunami, Her smile as impassive and remote as the moon. The clear gray of her eyes is reminiscent of the calm before a storm.

" **You didn't deserve to Fall.** "

There's a beat of silence, and then—

"You have got to be _fucking kidding me_ ," Crowley bursts out. Before he knows what he's doing he's on his feet, feeling like he could really do with a good, cathartic yelling at his house plants right now. . . . but God will just have to do. Even the tiny decrease in distance from Her is a bit painful, with all that holiness, yet he refuses to back down now that he's stood up. "Are you threatening to _forgive_ me? Because that's what it is, a bloody d— _holy_ threat!"

" **That's exactly what I'm offering you, Crowley** ," She replies placidly. " **And you'll only have this one opportunity to take me up on it. There's a space in the Heavenly host that could only ever be filled by** —"

God says a word that was struck from all the languages of Heaven, Hell, and the not yet created Earth on the day he Fell, never to be remembered by any of Her creations but sounding, in some ways, as though it might start with a _Ca_ \- or a _Ko-_ and end with a - _riel_.

"No!" Crowley doesn't hear it, or does his best not too, because he's clapped his hands over his ears before she started saying it. His _name_ , the name that even he doesn't properly remember anymore yet can't help recognizing. When She's done saying it he yanks his hands down to his sides, fists clenching so hard that he might be drawing blood. "No, no, no, no! You think that's what I want to be, do you actually think that? I've been a demon for so long, if you made me an angel now I'd Fall again within the week! If not less. Fuck that. Do you hear me? _Fuck_ that. Your idea of a reward is to turn my existence upside down, only to let me go through _that_ again? Fuck _you_!"

Distantly, part of him is elated. Not because of the offer—never that—but because he is vindicated. She'd said he didn't deserve it. She'd _said_ that. The spark of anger in his heart that he's nursed for millennia because it just wasn't _fair_ is finally, in part, appeased. Not enough to make anything better, not enough to make it right, but it's already more than he ever imagined he would get.

Another part of him is desperately sad, but still defiant. Oh he _wants_ what She had offered, yes, but knows he can never have it, knows a trick when he sees one, refuses to somehow become the butt of some cosmic joke. He doesn't. . . . There's only one being he trusts, and it's not Her. Hasn't been for millennia.

The rest of him, however, is still terrified. He just told the Almighty to fuck off. That can't be good. She can be . . . tetchy, sometimes.

But She doesn't look angry. Much to Crowley's surprise (and confusion, and unrighteous indignance), a slow, exquisitely satisfied smile is spreading across Her holy countenance.

" **I was hoping you'd say that,** " God tells him. " **I was pretty sure you would, after six thousand years with the forbidden fruit metaphor I gave you by your side, when I could've been more subtle and put it up a mountain or on the moon or something, but I had to ask. Well!** " She straightens in the chair and claps her hands on her knees in prelude to standing up, which She does with a twinkle in Her eye. " **I'd better be going. Miles to go before I sleep, you know the saying. No rest for the wicked [1], eh Crowley?**" She adds with a wink.

Then She's gone, with only _everything_ to remind Crowley that She had been there. It will take him weeks to get the place aired out and rid of that holy aftersense. The holiest. It leaves behind a void of longing that he has no idea how to fill, and his first instinct is still to run.

The demon sinks bonelessly onto the edge of his mattress, staring at the empty chair. "What," he asks no one in particular, "the _fuck_ just happened?"

* * *

1One of the definitions of wicked is "capable of harming someone or something," and She is that, as a fairly impartial god. Just ask Job.Return to text


	2. An Endlessly Upward World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale makes cocoa while musing about the past, Crowley drives like a maniac while trying to decode the future, and eventually they might meet in the middle. 
> 
> (Cocoa recipe included at chapter's end.)

The most peculiar thing happens at the onset of spring, just as the first drizzle of the season begins to fall tentatively over London: in his bookshop, Aziraphale abruptly stops what he’s doing to sneeze. 

As a proprietor of a shop full of old books and perpetual dust motes, this probably doesn’t happen as often as it should. Still, it surprises him. Aziraphale could probably tally up all the times he’s sneezed in a human corporation without resorting to polydactylism. But the Chinese—Or was it the Japanese? He can never quite recall—whoever it was had gotten it right, at least when it comes to supernatural beings for whom sneezing is usually optional: a single sneeze meant that somewhere, someone was talking about him. Probably favorably. 

He waits curiously for another moment before deciding that yes, that’s going to be all. Favorably it is, then. 

“That’s nice,” the angel muses out loud, and goes back to his book. 

* * *

_After the Beginning, there was a brief lull._

_There was more than just light and dark now: there was_ **_sky_ ** _and_ **_land_ ** _and_ **_seas_** _,_ **_plants_ ** _and_ **_beasts_** _, even_ **_humans_** _. These last were the_ **_next_ ** _the now-demons had foreseen and this reinforced their resentment, cementing the ethic of distrust and rebellion in Hell forevermore. And to be perfectly honest, the angels weren’t all that pleased about them either, reinforcing the notion throughout the firmament of Heaven that they must strive to always remain aloft and superior._

_In that seventh day, as She rested with the newly birthed creation in Her arms, one angel and one demon were each singled out to claim the first garden on Earth, to cultivate human souls for their respective sides just as Adam and Eve tended to the flora and fauna._

_The demon slithered up into the fresh air, shortly after mid-day, and before long was enlightened._

_The angel descended to his new post on the Eastern Gate, shortly after mid-day, and before long was endarkened._

_Whether God had foreseen this happening is immaterial. As soon as there were agents of Heaven and Hell in this new place, a tree grew in the center of Eden. It took the light in the air above and the damp of the dark below, and made fruit from the knowledge of the two._

_The demon was the first to stretch up and investigate the fruit, and suggested to Eve that it might be sweet to taste. It wasn’t necessarily_ his _fault that she listened._

 _Then there was_ **_Crawly_** _._

 _The angel was the first to realize that something had changed, and when he heard that God was sending the humans away he took pity. It wasn’t as if anyone had told him he_ couldn’t _give his sword away for a good cause._

 _Then there was_ **_Aziraphale_** _._

_The two met for the first time, watching Adam and Eve make their cautious way into the desert beneath ominous clouds. Both of them had knowledge of what it meant to Fall, although they came by it in different ways. Both thought, what a shame if God were to forsake humanity so soon after it had come to know what it was. Aziraphale lifted his wing for Crawly (who was already thinking a change of name might be in order) to take shelter as the first raindrops of the first great storm fell._

_The lull ended._

_And the Earth, abruptly, became theirs as well._

* * *

Barely an hour later, Aziraphale puts his book down again. Not that he minds Adam’s taste in material, for the most part, but children’s literature doesn’t hold his interest quite as tightly as prophetic texts and it’s been a long several years of familiarizing himself with the new inventory. 

If he’s being honest with himself, he’s _restless_. In the past he’d always had a sense of purpose but now, with no Heaven to answer to and no vague ideas of one-upping Hell, the cozy bookshop that he’s maintained for centuries is starting to feel a bit claustrophobic, like a tartan collar buttoned just a tad too tight. And yet, at the same time, he feels unusually reluctant to leave it. With the exception of occasional visits to Crowley’s flat, he hasn’t been out much at all since the failed Apocalypse seven years ago. 

Not that those visits are terribly exciting. If Aziraphale were to _truly_ be honest with himself, he would be forced to admit that he feels a little let down by his friend, who took to sleeping almost immediately after their celebratory dinner at the Ritz. Sleeping through the nineteenth century was one thing, but now that they’re supposed to be on their own side together the angel feels very lonely indeed. So he visits, every now and then, to keep the plants watered and check for any signs that the demon might wake up soon—but he won’t go today. It’s been less than a month since the last time and he has no intention of appearing desperate, even if only to himself. 

With a sigh, he tucks the book away and gets up to make a fresh cup of cocoa. 

* * *

Crowley is pushing the Bentley past ninety and trying to shake off enough of the lingering sense of extreme holiness to be able to think. 

Most of his thoughts kept being derailed by the fact that _God didn’t make personal appearances_. Not anymore. Not ever, really, on Earth. Admittedly, he’d been out of touch for a long while, but even with humans She had always kept a certain amount of distance, preferring to stick to divine dramatic lighting and let the Metatron make most of the public announcements. Moving in Her own mysterious ways, even before Her angels started Falling like flies. 

In the moment, Crowley had just assumed that this sort of thing must happen to all angels occasionally. Probably still rare, but not completely unexpected when you get right down to it. Now that his head’s starting to clear, he isn’t so sure. Had _Gabriel_ ever sat down to a tête-à-tête with the Almighty? 

The idea almost makes Crowley want to laugh out loud. No, if he’s any judge of character (and he prides himself on being that), the God he’d just had the most uncomfortable conversation of his entire existence with would have ripped that pompous archangel a new one. The hands-off method of governing Her creations wasn’t really all that mysterious, thinking about it in light of the kind of assholes it allows Her to avoid. He can respect that much, however grudgingly, but it leaves a Heaven of a lot of unanswered questions. 

Quite far outside of London now, Crowley swerves to avoid a puddle that the spring rain is rapidly turning into a minor lake. Without really thinking about it he adds a few submerged rocks to trouble future motorists. Habit. 

_She said I didn’t deserve to Fall_. He settles back into his lane and floors the gas pedal. _She talked as though I have free will._

“Demons don’t _have_ that,” he mutters to himself, thumping the wheel for emphasis. “Neither do angels. Always been that way. Humans are the only ones who have free will, _everyone_ knows that.”

Still, he’d made a choice. The only choice he could have possibly made, because he just can’t be anything else—something his original Fall had made perfectly clear, no matter what She said. Maybe he has redeemed himself with his actions in recent years, but that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly harboring any more faith or obedience than he’d had before. 

“And what was that about forbidden fruit?” Crowley continues ranting, steering the conversation with no one in a different direction for his own sake, and sending the Bentley careening towards the horizon in defiance of conventional road safety. “What the hell was that supposed to mean? I haven’t had anything to do with forbidden fruit since—!”

Since Eden, and meeting Aziraphale. Since taking shelter under the angel’s wing and feeling touched that the other being had even been kind enough to offer, breathing in his scent for the first time. Quicker than lightning, the theater of Crowley’s imagination conjures up a string of inextricably linked memories.

. . . Aziraphale straining to put a positive spin on the Great Flood, a tiny line appearing between his eyebrows, trying not to blast angelic understanding in the demon’s direction as Crowley said that thing about kids. 

. . . Aziraphale and his exact tone of voice when saying “be kind to each other,” with barely-surprised concern hiding behind those five words, right after pointing out stiffly that he had no voice in matters of Heavenly policy. 

. . . Aziraphale saying “Let me tempt you to” before catching himself and tripping over the rest of the sentence with a level of embarrassment at the gaffe that Crowley found utterly charming. 

“Stop it,” he growls to himself. This unspooling of fond memories is bordering on dangerous territory, dwelling on things he’s known damn well he can’t have for six thousand y—

_Oh… fuck._

. . . Aziraphale greeting him in a poorly lit Roman tavern by his old, snake-ier name, then automatically correcting himself hardly an instant later. 

. . . Aziraphale’s delighted expression in the Globe Theatre as he realized that he could get Crowley to commit a miracle, even if it wasn’t one of Shakespeare’s funny plays. 

. . . Aziraphale lighting up when he recognized Crowley’s voice in the Bastille, half a second before looking the demon up and down in order to assess his outfit. 

. . . Aziraphale shutting down the instant Crowley had brought up wanting insurance because he was smart enough to realize what he was about to be asked for. 

Aziraphale, Aziraphale, _Aziraphale._

Crowley lets out a heartfelt blessing. She’d even mentioned him! The forbidden angel by his side, the only being he could really stand being around for any length of time, his only friend . . . and now his only ally as well. 

Ahead, the road dips down into a partly sunken lane. He lets the Bentley hurtle into it and the gray sky overhead is obscured by a blur of mostly bare tree branches. 

His angel, whose aura he had memorized better than his own and who he could, under no circumstances, actually call his own—because when it came to Aziraphale, there had always been three options: either Aziraphale would reject him (what angel wouldn’t repudiate a demon’s advances) and never talk to him again, or Aziraphale would feel the same and Fall (what angel could fail to repudiate a demon’s advances without sullying their bond with God) and never talk to him again . . . or Aziraphale would never, ever find out. 

There’s really only one outcome that Crowley could accept, and until now he had always felt that there was only one possible choice. 

A sharp _crack_ yanks his attention back out of his thoughts. Ahead—which, at these speeds, is rapidly becoming _right there_ —a tree has inconveniently decided to lose its grip on the softening earth wall on one side of the lane. Crowley hisses in annoyance and exerts his will on both reality and the brake pedal, parting the water on the road to avoid hydroplaning and thickening the very air to help slow the Bentley down. If he were wearing a seatbelt it would be taut and cutting into his chest right now, so it’s a good thing he isn’t.

In a matter of seconds the Bentley successfully fishtails to a muddy stop, idling slightly off the edge of the road proper but unscratched, undented. “Good car,” Crowley mutters, leaning forward to stroke the dashboard. Then he turns the lean into an excuse to glare up at the sky through the sudden hole in the scraggly, dripping canopy and snaps, “Was that _necessary_?”

He freezes. The motion of the sudden stop has sent his sunglasses sliding down his nose, giving him an unfettered view of . . .

A rainbow. 

In spite of the continued rain and continuing gray of the day, he sees God’s traditional shorthand for, _Hey, I know I’ve been a bit of a dick about something or other but, really guys, I’m not going to do it again, I swear to Myself_. 

She’d said he didn’t deserve to Fall. She’d offered him a choice as though he had free will. That must mean that the rules have changed, and maybe one small indiscretion isn’t enough to send any unwitting angel hurtling downwards based on an insignificant offence. Maybe he has _choices_ now. 

In the theater of Crowley’s imagination, possibilities begin to collide and explode — because from the perspective of a denizen[1] of Hell, there’s literally nowhere to go but up. 

He swings the Bentley around and floors the gas full speed back towards London. 

* * *

_The thing is,_ Aziraphale specifically avoids thinking as he goes about the mindless human process of gently heating cream with a splash of whole milk on a portable gas hob he keeps in the back room. . . . The thing is, they’d spent eleven years working in unprecedented close proximity. He had grown accustomed to Crowley hanging around all the time under those circumstances, and somewhere amid all the distraction he’d half-forgotten that there _were_ circumstances, and. And. 

Why is this bothering him so much today?

Ah yes, it’s because of the sneeze. Aziraphale gives a little huff at himself for being so ridiculous as to hope that, somewhere, Crowley had been awake and talking about him. Who would he be talking to, after all? No, if Crowley was awake he would have stopped by to say hello by now, surely. . . . But then, he hadn’t expected Crowley to go to sleep without so much as a “See you next decade, angel,” so. 

Aziraphale sighs and focuses on his cocoa. There are a heavenly host of possibilities, and he’s tried all of them at least once. Today, he’s feeling nostalgic, and pulls out a small microplane to grate fresh nutmeg into the cream as it warms. A pinch of ground ginger, a dash of crushed cinnamon . . . he inhales the blooming fragrance of spices and lets his mind drift on it. The Mayans had been lovely, and so much freer with their xocolātl than the Aztecs. 

Of course, he had run into Crowley there too. It had been 907 CE and running into each other was already a fairly common occurrence by then, despite the size of the world and their being two relatively small moving parts upon it, and he’d never quite gotten a satisfactory answer as to what the demon was doing in Mesoamerica. Came for the ritual sacrifices, lingered for all the fascinating feats of architecture and civilization, he’d always supposed.

From one of the many drawers in the room, Aziraphale selects the appropriate sized whisk and gives the mixture a brisk stir, turning the heat down slightly to avoid it going so far as to boil. 

They’d commandeered a table in one of the mostly deserted cafes, waited on by the very anxious cafe owner who wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t closed up yet, and watched the seemingly endless stream of humanity flowing out of the great stone city. . . .

* * *

. . . “Why are they all in such a rush to leave? Winter is coming on. They should be at home, keeping warm,” Aziraphale remembered saying, and then giving Crowley a mildly suspicious look. “My dear boy, you didn’t… _do_ something, did you?”

And Crowley, sprawled so indecorously on his stone bench that the woven zibake mat was in danger of sliding off onto the flagstones, shrugged and sipped his drink. “‘S just as much a mystery to me as it is to you, angel. But there _is_ a drought on, and the peasants have been getting a bit restless, and what with the Aztecs starting to give everyone trouble…” 

That seemed to be a no. Probably. 

“They had such a flourishing culture here when I arrived,” Aziraphale fretted. He never could decide why he’d felt vaguely guilty about standing by while things crumbled, but he always did. “Their own independently contrived writing system… I thought I would stop by and see if they were putting together anything interesting, like the _Vergilius Augusteus_ , you know—but I’m afraid that strings of carvings on stone monuments have never been quite my style.”

“Like growing out your curly locks out to fit in more with the locals?” Crowley asked with a pointed look from out of the shadows beneath his wide-brimmed hat. His own hair was pulled up high under the hat into a partly braided tail and fell to just past his shoulders. “Only the slaves have hair that short around here.” 

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “Yes, well. I’ve rather preferred keeping to the background. There’s plenty of good one can do while no one is paying any particular attention.” 

That caused Crowley to raise an eyebrow, privately rather sure that the angel was just imagining no one would bother him hard enough that no one was. 

“I was just starting to hear rumors about some kind of bark paper and was trying to encourage it,” Aziraphale continued, and sighed. “This mass exodus will only set that back.”

“Maybe, but just by a century or two,” Crowley replied carelessly. He had a thin strip of xocolātl clinging to his upper lip. “Civilizations come and go, but humans are always bouncing back.” 

Instead of replying, Aziraphale had leaned across the table and primly wiped the mess off the demon’s face with the edge of his plain, cream-colored manta, and then fussed about the brown stain until Crowley had rolled his eyes and blown it into the wind. . . .

* * *

. . . Aziraphale whisks in flakes of dark chocolate. The honey isn’t traditional but it does wonders for blunting the bitterness, and rather than vanilla he opts for a tiny splash of almond extract for more depth. 

He wonders if thinking of humans as a kind of collective bouncy ball[2]was part of why Crowley sometimes slept so much. Don’t particularly like the 19th century? Just stay in bed until the next rebound, no big deal, who would even notice or mind. 

Not that Aziraphale is _supposed_ to care. It’s supposed to be a good thing that evil does, in fact, sleep rather a lot on occasion. 

He isn’t supposed to mind, but he does. 

The cocoa is ready. Aziraphale pours it from the saucepan into a mug with an angel wings handle, then expertly back and forth between that and an identical mug several times to give it a bit of a froth, and ambles back into the bookshop proper to his comfortable chair. As he sits, he glances out a nearby window and sees a glimmer of distant rainbow in the sky between the nearest Soho buildings, already starting to fade but just vivid enough to be noticeable. _That’s nice_ , he thinks with an absentminded smile, and sips. 

It’s not like xocolātl, really, considering the lack of maize-meal and the added touch of sweetness—a happy medium between Mayan and European. It tastes deep, dark, and utterly magnificent, a thick, gloriously rich mug of steaming chocolate velvet.

He’s almost managed to re-engage his attention on the book he’s trying to read when the doors to the shop burst open, and something in Aziraphale settles pleasantly, a sense of balance restored. Everything had been thoroughly locked up, after all, and there’s more to his closed sign than just politely suggesting that humans should try coming by at another time. The only being with a standing invitation to break that protective ward is—

“Crowley, dear boy, you should have called ahead,” Aziraphale chides amiably, putting the book aside again without hesitation and starting to stand. “I would have made enough cocoa for both of us if I’d known you were coming.”

The doors snap smartly shut after the demon, which is normal, but Crowley is already removing his sunglasses, which is usually reserved for around the second or third glass of wine. Bare yellow irises focus on Aziraphale with such burning intensity that he can feel heat creeping into his face as if through the visual connection. In fewer strides than he would have thought possible Crowley is there, sauntering, sliding, slithering into his personal space, grabbing him by the waistcoat, yanking him the rest of the way to his feet. 

“Hi,” Crowley says breathlessly, and tugs the angel even further off balance into a fervent kiss.

* * *

1Or ex-denizen, he supposes. That one is still going to take some getting used to.Return to text

2About a decade ago, Warlock had gone through a brief phase of playing basketball in the garden. If pressed, Aziraphale would reluctantly admit that the child had been admirably patient throughout attempting to teach “Brother Frances” the rules of the game, just to explain why it made sense that something called a rebound had sent the ball into the poor begonias.Return to text

* * *

**_Post Script:_ ** **_Aziraphale’s Hot Cocoa Recipe_ **

* * *

This is a combination of spicy Mesoamerican xocolātl and modern European hot chocolate. Now, I haven't tested it myself, but from what I've been told by those who have, it's _intense_. Further feedback is always welcome.

Ingredients:

  * 1 cup heavy cream
  * ½ cup whole milk
  * 1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg, or to taste
  * 1 pinch ground ginger
  * 1 tbsp crushed cinnamon sticks (preferably Ceylon)
  * 3 oz dark, bittersweet, or semi-sweet chocolate (high quality), finely chopped
  * ¾ tbsp honey, or 1½ tsp powdered sugar
  * ¾ tsp almond extract
  * 1 pinch of salt
  * ⅛ - ¼ tsp ground chile de árbol or cayenne pepper, to taste, plus more for serving



1\. Combine cream, whole milk, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon in a small pot over medium-low heat, whisking occasionally.

2\. Making sure not to let it boil, allow to simmer for around 10 minutes or until the fragrance of spices permeates the room.

3\. Whisk in the chocolate, honey, almond extract, salt, and chile. Continue to whisk frequently until the mixture is smooth and creamy and the chocolate is fully melted, around 5 minutes.

4\. Rapidly pour from one cup into another until a frothy foam formed on the top, like they used to for xocolātl.

5\. Serve dusted with extra chile powder. Lightly sweetened whipped cream and an additional dusting of cocoa powder optional.


	3. The Name We've Long Held Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crowley knows he's taken a terrible risk, Aziraphale admit some things, and a waitress does a really bad job of reading the table (but probably still gets a generous tip because, after all, she's waiting on a literal angel).

Aziraphale has a photographic memory. All angels do. (Demons do as well but, for the most part, wish they didn’t and actively try to ignore it.) So he remembers every time he’s caught himself noticing Crowley’s mouth, though he hasn’t done much with those memories beyond knowing they were there. Sometimes they would rise unbidden, but no more so than when whatever newfangled style of tinted glasses Crowley was wearing might automatically call to mind its many predecessors. That’s what Aziraphale had always thought, at any rate. 

He barely has time to register Crowley saying _Hi_ —half as if this is just a normal day and half as if he’s just run a marathon—before the demon is on him, yanking him close, kissing him like someone drowning and starving for air. And what follows, in Aziraphale’s mind, is a dazed recollection of every time this could have happened before, but hadn’t. 

. . . The corners of Crowley’s mouth seesawing into a guarded smile, as if it had been drawn out against his better judgement but still genuine, indulgent. A real smile, wavering in the middle when it was returned but settling back after a second, like that first time they’d shared a joke in Eden. How his lips move around words, even mocking ones— _nothing but celestial harmonies_. Sometimes hissing, sometimes snarling when he’s been accused of being _nice_ or _kind_ or _good_. 

. . . A multitude of single wine drops on that lower lip, sometimes licked away by a quick swipe of forked tongue and sometimes tipped over the edge by a breath, sliding down his chin whilst Aziraphale’s eyes covertly traced its passage. 

He doesn’t think Crowley has ever noticed him watching. He barely noticed himself, at the time, but Crowley is _kissing him_ and that single fact throws everything into sharp relief. 

Aziraphale lets his lips part in a silent sigh of realization. 

* * *

It’s a terrible risk, of course. Marching in and effectively making a silent but very palpable declaration like this, pouring all the want and completeness and, ugh, even _giddiness_ that he’s harbored for and with and because of Aziraphale for the better part of the age of the very Earth beneath their feet. Terrible risk. He knows that. He isn’t _stupid_. 

Crowley isn’t exactly brave, either, and he doesn’t jump before he thinks; his problem has always been that he spends altogether too much time thinking. He’s been thinking about this for roughly six thousand years. But his other problem is that, when he’s finally done thinking, he’s prone to going entirely too fast. _Swan diving into a boiling lake of sulfur_ too fast. _Worrying Aziraphale with the way he drives_ too fast. 

But he is also, at heart, somehow still an optimist. Maybe thousands of years of waiting have been enough. 

He’s thought about what he would do when he got here all throughout the drive back into London, breaking every speed limit on Earth in the process, and made his decision in the instant between parking the Bentley and his snakeskin shoes hitting the sidewalk. It’s all jumbled up in his head now, for all that it had made sense a moment ago—something like hope. He’s been holding back for so long now, unwilling to push Aziraphale towards that which every angel is too afraid to contemplate, towards loving one person more than the _everything_ that is the Almighty and risking a Fall. But when God Herself shows up in one’s bedroom and as good as _apologizes_ for something . . .

It’s hard to tell how far the Get Out of Jail Free card will stretch, but he thinks, he hopes, he very nearly _prays_ that there’s nothing for Aziraphale to fear, that it’s all just smoke and mirrors and cautionary tales that angels tell each other to keep the ranks in check. 

The next thing he knows his hands are twisted into the front of his angel’s waistcoat. Aziraphale isn’t pushing him away, but he’s not exactly reacting at all, and maybe the risk wasn’t worth it after all. 

It’s almost too much. Crowley might be an optimist but he still nearly panics, silently cursing all the damn rainbows ever spread across the sky, and the fact that he’s ended up planting one on the other’s top lip rather than landing on target, and himself for being so wrapped up in the dream of neither of them getting in trouble for this that he’s forgotten to worry if the other being even wants it. This. Him. Whatever. 

Until Aziraphale’s mouth slips open and he all but tumbles in. That must mean it’s alright, mustn’t it? The little sigh Crowley swallows before it has a chance to escape either of their lips seems to say, _yes_.

Embracing this turn of good luck while still almost too amazed to believe it, Crowley experiments with deepening the kiss, tentatively tilting his head and licking gently along Aziraphale’s tongue. For so long he’s been cautious, so cautious about _you go too fast for me Crowley_ , and he’s not letting go of all of that in one go but oh, the loosening of the millennia-old knot in his chest makes this much feel worth the risk. Aziraphale tastes of spices, reminding him vaguely of stone cities and some of the most Satan-awful uncomfortable furniture he’d encountered since the actual Stone Age. But Aziraphale also tastes of chocolate, and warmth, and just a hint of Heaven, a tingle of ethereal wintergreen that burns with the slow build of a hymn. 

It feels like falling and expecting to be caught, and when Aziraphale tentatively mirrors the movement, angling his head slightly in the other direction, the thrill that comes with having that expectation met is so devastating that Crowley’s knees almost rebel. For a moment it feels like they might actually both end up on the bookshop floor… (The bookshop. Right. There are actual physical surroundings littered with old books and dust and warm furniture, grounding and very real, now that he’s remembered they exist.) But one or both of them, he’s too dazed to be sure which, manages to shift and steady just in time. 

They pull apart reluctantly. 

At least, Crowley is reluctant. He thinks, hopes, Aziraphale might be too. Suddenly, he realizes his hands are still clutching at Aziraphale’s waistcoat and starts the slippery process of untangling them, but goes stock-still when the angel lays both hands over his, the skin warm and exquisitely soft. 

“What do you say, my dear boy,” says Aziraphale, “to a spot of lunch?”

* * *

It’s not the Ritz, but a small wine bar in a quiet part of London that hasn’t changed much since the sixteen hundreds or so. Meaning, of course, that the street is so narrow as to be impassible to most modern traffic, and it took a miracle to get a parking spot within reasonable walking distance. There’s not much of a lunch menu, but the place does a decent charcuterie board and small bites. As soon as the host has shown them to their seats and left them to look over the drinks list, Aziraphale leans forward, a smile crinkling around his eyes. 

“Do you remember the last time we ate here?” he asks. “It was after that church, you know, the one during—”

“The Blitz, yeah, I know,” Crowley interrupts, and immediately knows he’s being too brusque from nerves. Which perhaps wouldn’t be so jangling if the angel had said anything on the ride here. What is it, Crowley wonders, some niggling demonic instinct to make life more _interesting_ for himself that had made him choose this particular place for this particular lunch?

This day is not good for his nerves at all. In his haphazard slouch, his leg bounces fitfully in various directions beneath the table. 

“I’m the one who picked this place, angel,” he tries again, going for soft but landing on sibilant instead. 

“Crowley.” 

The way Aziraphale says it is mildly reproachful, but the hand that suddenly covers the demon’s fidgeting, tapping fingers on the polished wood tabletop is warm. Amazing how fast a shock like that can travel from nerve endings to whatever brain machinery in this human corporation that makes his face heat up. Never had that problem as a snake. Scales can’t blush. 

“It’s . . . it’s very good to see you again, you know,” Aziraphale tells him. Their hands are still touching, and Crowley’s face is still warm. “I was a bit worried when you stopped returning phone calls, and I must admit that I, ah, well. Took the liberty of checking in on you every now and then over the past few years, while you slept.”

“Nghh,” Crowley replies with a shrug of only one shoulder, biting firmly on the insides of his cheeks to keep from actually interrupting. Aziraphale had been in his flat? No wonder the plants had been in such good condition (and spirits) when he’d rushed out, sparing them barely half a glance. 

“It was a bit lonely,” Aziraphale admits. “Funny thing, but I’d never really felt lonely before. Six thousand years being the only angel stationed permanently on Earth, yes, but . . . I’d see people I knew, occasionally. Gabriel would check in, or Michael would call. Messengers would pass through every now and then, and even when they didn’t have time to stop and chat it was still—”

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the waitress cut in with a huge fishing-for-tips grin spread across her face. “Would you like to hear about the specials we have on tap today?”

“ _No_ ,” Crowley snaps. Aziraphale has stopped talking and taken his hand back to primly shake out his napkin as though there hadn’t just been a gross intrusion on their conversation, and he’s not sure where the angel was going with his line of thought but he damn well wants to find out. “Two glasses of whatever’s at the top of the wine list, _go_.”

Aziraphale sighs at the waitress’ hurried retreat. “Well that was rude.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Not you, her.” He settles the napkin in his lap and looks up at Crowley once more. “Where was I? I was thinking about this the whole way here, and now I’ve lost the thread. . . . Ah, well. The point is,” and he smiles, “the point is that while I have in many ways cut ties with Heaven, I believe what I’ve been missing this whole time was you, my dear.”

“Me,” Crowley repeats stupidly. Inwardly, there are fireworks going off behind his eyes, for two reasons. First, _Aziraphale_ just put him and Heaven in the same sentence, _favorably_. And second . . . Aziraphale _missed_ him, and in conjunction with that fact Crowley is starting to realize what’s going on. 

“Yes. And I rather think, from your dramatic reappearance, that you felt the same.”

It would be impossible to deny it, so he doesn’t even try, just nods. After that kiss he could hardly claim anything to the contrary . . . and Aziraphale hadn’t pushed him away, had actually showed signs of wanting it to continue, so Crowley isn’t even sure he _wants_ to be contrary right now. 

They’ve gone to lunch thousands of times, but this one might be a _date_. Their first. 

“So.” This seems to be what Aziraphale has been working up to with his little speech, and Crowley is anxious to hear it, the heel of his snakeskin shoe _tap tap tapping_ away under the table. “Why did you go to sleep without leaving any sort of word? After all this business with Heaven and Hell and our side?”

Crowley nearly falls out of his chair—which is impressive, given that he’s seated on a bench that runs along the entire wall of the restaurant. It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected the question, he’d just rather hoped that it wouldn’t come up quite so soon. He’d had _plans_ , sort of, but Aziraphale has charmingly managed to derail absolutely all of them. 

“Look,” he begins, and is of course interrupted by the arrival of their wine. 

The wine that is in fact a Spanish cava, sparkling merrily away in two chilled flutes, because the first thing on the wine list is bubbles. 

“Here you are,” the waitress says with a marginally dimmer smile than before. “This is—”

This time it’s Aziraphale who waves a hand, gently suggests that she be off and come back a good deal later with the charcuterie and cheese board, and a selection of those delightful-sounding finger sandwiches, and then turns back to Crowley expectantly. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

“Uh, I was tired,” Crowley offers lamely. “Honestly. All the running around in Tadfield and the . . . stuff that came after.” No one’s listening, as far as he can tell, but it’s probably best not to talk about the body-swap stunt out loud. Aziraphale seems to understand. 

He means it too. It _had_ been tiring, imagining the flaming Bentley was still a working car for the entire drive from London, not to mention the strain of being in Heaven again even for a short time. All the stark, unending whiteness and bright light up there had given him one hell of a headache. 

There are a lot of reasons for why Crowley had settled in for such a long nap, and he doesn’t really feel like doing a deep dive into most of them right now. But there’s a lot more that he’s _really_ unprepared to get into—what happened a few hours ago for a start. Bringing up God is the last thing Crowley wants to do right now, for a lot of complicated, gut-twisting reasons. He doesn’t regret his choice, but he’s worried that Aziraphale wouldn’t see things quite the same way. 

“And?” Aziraphale prompts, and looks as though he really wants to know. That’s slightly encouraging, at least. 

Crowley makes a show of making a face and picks up his wine flute. “You know, for not having spent all _that_ much time together out of all the thousands of years we’ve been on this stupid planet, we might know each other too well. _And . . ._ ” He pauses, takes a sip, and continues in more of a mumble. “. . . Might’ve wanted to kiss you for a while, but. I needed to work my way up to it.”

The look Aziraphale gives him is surprised, warm, and curious all at once.” How long is a while?”

From the midst of his second sip Crowley pulls the glass away from his mouth, accidentally wetting his lips, and waggles a finger reproachfully. “Mm-mmmn, that’s no good for a first date.” Satan knows he’s witnessed enough of them, particularly since the start of online dating websites and apps. (From a distance of course, and only to see if various human blunders could be improved upon, i.e. made worse, by demonic meddling. They couldn’t; humans seem to have screwing things up for themselves quite well in hand all on their own.) “That’s more third or fourth date material.”

“Is it?” Aziraphale is fairly beaming, and it’s only then that Crowley realizes he just said _date_ out loud. Twice. Damn Freud and his -ian slips. 

“Well, yeah? I mean,” Crowley sputters. Because how is he supposed to react to this? He’d had _plans_ , damn it. None of them had accounted for this conversation. “What’d you think, that we’d—” vague gestures between the two of them, possibly indicating something around the facial area “—and I’d just never call you again?”

That hangs awkwardly between them for a moment, underlied by the fact that, technically, they’d saved the world together and he _hadn’t_ called, for the better part of a decade. The moment isn’t silent, at least—he’s been trying to ignore their surroundings up until this point in order to _focus_ , but it’s starting to become a welcome distraction in the face of Aziraphale’s patient but uncertain stare. The clink of wine glasses, and flatware on plates. Background conversation that drifts past their little corner of the room like sprightly eddies past a deeper, slower part of the river. All the humans around them, speaking their life-lines trippingly and rushing into their significantly shorter futures like they have nothing to lose, and he envies them. 

After a minor eternity, Crowley sighs. “Because that’s not going to happen,” he adds belatedly. “Look, angel, we’ve known each other six millennia, and we’re finally both on the same side now. On _our_ side. And considering I didn’t _actually_ bugger off to Alpha Centauri without you during the whole Apocalypse business, which I could’ve, I’d say you’re stuck with me. And you’ll just have to make your peace with that.” 

He shoots Aziraphale a _so there_ look from behind his sunglasses, which he trusts the other knows how to read. It’s as close as he can come just now, in the relative silence, to opening up and bleeding out a want that runs like veins of bright gold through the soul and center of him. 

Aziraphale considers this for another moment. Then, with a smile so bright that Crowley thinks he might get a sunburn, he returns his hand to the table and links their fingers together. “Good. Existence without you just wouldn’t be the same, my dear.”

“Good,” Crowley repeats, hazarding a grin. When this doesn’t seem to go over badly, he allows it to widen. “Great. Wahoo.” 

There’s an old knot beginning to loosen in his chest—tentative and distrusting out of habit, but loosening all the same. He’s not sure when it got there, even with his demonic photographic memory; not sure what event had first tied it fast, or if he’d just been made with it there. But the ingrained caution, despite the stubborn streak of optimism that even Falling hadn’t managed to burn away, means he has to ask, just to be sure. 

“So, I wasn’t . . . taking liberties, or anything? With the, uh. Kisss.”

“Not at all, my dear.” Aziraphale uses his free hand to retrieve his glass and sips at the cava. “I’ve always known that I was quite fond of you, more than would be considered appropriate for an angel to be of a demon, but it took something quite dramatic to finally put it in the proper perspective for me.”

A disbelieving eyebrow creeps towards Crowley’s hairline, even as his face heats slightly at the implications behind _always known_. How long was always, exactly? He must remember to ask later. “More dramatic than averting the apocalypse together?”

“More dramatic than being assaulted by a group of angels who referred to you as my ‘boyfriend in the dark glasses,’” Aziraphale replies blithely. 

“ _What_?” Crowley yelps, far too loudly. The other wine bar patrons glance towards them, and he lowers his voice to a heated growl. “Which angels? When was this?”

“Shortly before I was accidentally discorporated and the shop caught on fire.” Aziraphale pauses, blinks, and has the decency to look a touch sheepish. “Had I not told you about that? I do apologize.”

“Which,” Crowley repeats flatly, “angels?"

Aziraphale sighs and gives his hand a squeeze. “I’m not going to tell you,” he replies. “Now is not the time for them, but for us. Don’t you think it should be, after all these years?” When Crowley proves too stubborn to answer, he pulls gently, drawing the demon slightly closer, and then leans across the small table to press their lips together. Like their first, it’s tentative; a discovery, a constant questioning of, _Is this alright?_

And the reassuring, constant response of, _Yes._

* * *

_After the fall of Eden, life rushed forth as a great river freed from a massive damn. Eve had children; at least one survived to find his own companion._

_God had already thought to provide for that necessity by then. While Crawly eavesdropped from the branches of a nearby fruit tree, She had said unto Her well-meaning Principality, “_ **_Take apart these walls surrounding this garden, Aziraphale, for from it shall come all the things that I have created and they shall spread across the entire Earth. And each stone you remove to lay on the ground shall spring up as a new Man, Woman, or Other to tend to all as they, too, begin to multiply._ ** _”_

_When the presence of the Almighty left (as much as it ever could), Crawly considered offering to help. It was a strange impulse for a demon to have, but he reasoned that more humans meant more souls to secure for Hell, which was more or less what he was supposed to do._

_After some contemplation, he decided not to and wandered off. Occasionally he did check to see how the angel was getting on, but always unseen and from a distance. Just to satisfy his curiosity, he assured himself._

_Later, the demon Crowley would wonder in a dream (which demons weren’t supposed to have) whether he had ever been any good at lying to himself. The significance of the fact that, in the dream, the question was voiced by the guise of the angel Aziraphale, and would go unremembered upon waking. In short, the answer to the question was: he had been, once, but rather lost the knack of it over time._

_God’s charge occupied a great deal of the angel’s attention for some decades, though near the end She saw his earnest diligence and took pity. She spoke a Word to let the remaining stones change to other shapes entirely, sinking them into the dirt and bedrock below. “_ **_Let it be a joke for them to puzzle out later_ ,** _” She pronounced kindly, and then dismissed him without explaining what the joke was meant to be._

_By this time, there were many humans spread across the Earth. Crawly had been among them while the angel worked, though in truth he had not done much himself. Mostly he had watched, studying the ways he might “cause trouble” as instructed. Humans, he had found, had more imagination than Eve; the things they managed to tempt themselves into without any effort made on his part often amazed him. Crawly studied them as an eager pupil, mesmerized by the ingenuity, the novelty, and the occasional snake-charmer._

_Which is not to say he did nothing in that time. Humans were new, but he understood angels much better, having briefly been one once himself. It was a simple enough matter to tempt them into noticing the comforts of human women, to lull them into the complacency of being on the good side and therefore, as angels, incapable of evil._

_They did not remain angels much longer, of course, and as a result new life surged forth. The Nephilim walked the Earth, doing such deeds as displeased God. After hearing some of the stories, Crawly did his best to avoid them. He encountered Aziraphale instead._

_The demon was surprised to find himself pleased by this. Was his kind not supposed to revile angels? He had not enjoyed the presence of those he had tempted, but this one was . . . kinder. By this point Crawly had been caught in the rain more than once, enough to attribute the proper appreciation to being offered shelter from that first storm._

_The news Aziraphale brought was less than kind, however. Was a massive flood really the best way to solve a problem, Crawly wondered? Best not to ask too closely, cautioned Aziraphale—and Crawly pitied him, for he saw the angel was too afraid of the answer to give it serious thought. Understandable, really, for was there not an example of the possible consequence standing right next to him?_

_Crawly found, too, that he had no relish for the idea of Aziraphale Falling. The angels he had tempted before had been derisive and arrogant, and earned their punishment. He remembered Aziraphale offering his wing for shelter without being asked, without even having experienced inclement weather before; here, Crawly felt, was something worth keeping as-is._

_The demon glanced to the sky and saw that the rains of a second great storm would soon begin, ushering in the flood. He glanced towards the ark that Noah had built, cubit by painstaking cubit._

_“I think they could use another snake and—” Crawly eyed Aziraphale thoughtfully “—an extra dove, don’t you?”_

_“Oh,” replied Aziraphale, sounding relieved, “I dare say you’re right. Not about needing a snake perhaps, but they’ll need birds to check for dry land for them once the storm ends. All the birds they can get, I expect.”_

_“Yeah, well. I’ll try not to eat any, then.”_

_The first raindrops of the second great storm fell and the humans around them sought shelter. Crawly and Aziraphale sought higher ground; in the fulldark that proceeded dawn, neither Noah nor his family noticed a rather large white dove perched on the head of a rather gigantic black snake as it swam up to the ark and stowed aboard._

* * *

It seems like the most daring idea Aziraphale has ever had, to lean across the table, crossing the chasms set between them by Heaven and Hell. Or . . . Well, they’d been building bridges over those since the beginning, hadn’t they? Not realizing it necessarily, not at first. He certainly hadn’t, but thinking back, he suddenly knows that Crowley must have. Dancing onto consecrated ground to save an angel from Nazis, and saving his precious books, too—he _must_ have. And of course, that’s only the first and best example that comes to mind because this is the restaurant where Crowley had driven him after the sirens had sounded the all-clear, to “settle the nerves.” (It had never been quite clear whose.)

Aziraphale remembers the brief instant their fingers had touched on the handle of the book satchel as Crowley had handed it back to him, the leather still tingling from that little demonic miracle. That’s what he had told himself. Because the alternative would have been admitting to himself . . .

The truth is that he has more in common with Crowley than any angel he can think of; that’s been the bedrock of all their interactions together since the Beginning. Together they had seen Adam and Eve take their first tentative steps out of Eden, watching together from the wall, which was a sight no other angel had bothered to be present for. They have an _interest_ in common, and that interest is humanity. But there had been something, too, about experiencing that interest through each others’ eyes. . . . not only the traded favors of blessings and temptations via the Arrangement, but of being able to discuss human foibles and quirks with another being whom shared the similar perspective of an immortal outsider. 

He knows all of this. He’s far from stupid. But today he’s beginning to acknowledge that something about their shared interest has tied them inextricably together in a way that has left their hereditary enemy-ness in the dust. 

He looks Crowley in the sunglasses, golden eyes radiating protective outrage from behind them on his behalf, and thinks, _My connection to this earth runs through you, my dear, and . . . and through my heart as well._ Then he looks at Crowley’s mouth, uses the grip he has on the demon's hand to pull him just close enough and meets his lips halfway.

It’s what they’ve been inching towards for millennia—he still wants to know how long it’s been for Crowley, and fully intends to re-introduce the question on their third or fourth date—but it still feels like the most daring thing Aziraphale has done since giving his flaming sword away. Because the problem with falling in love with a demon is that at some point he’s going to encounter that line drawn in the sand, the Rubicon that no angel can cross without losing Grace.

Nothing bad happens, though, besides the revolutionary experience of surprising Crowley with a kiss. Aziraphale still isn’t sure what to do beyond savor the mingled citric-baked-apple-nuttiness of the cava and the smoke-dashed taste of the demon himself, but after a moment of cautious exploration Crowley takes the lead and does that fork tongue thing against his bottom lip that just makes him want to _melt_. They don’t need to breathe, they could go on like this forever if they wanted to, and nothing about it feels bad. So Aziraphale relaxes, marginally because there’s still a line out there somewhere (there must be, stands to reason), but he hasn’t reached it yet.

When the food arrives, their hands remain entangled. Aziraphale makes do eating with only his left. 

* * *

The time that follows their impromptu first date is, in Crowley’s opinion, some of the best since the stuff was invented. Quality days, well-crafted hours, exquisite minutes. Even the seconds are good. Ordinarily he would berate himself inwardly for being such a sap, but he’s too busy being happy. 

It doesn’t look all _that_ different from when they had been around each other in the eleven years leading up to A-day, minus the childcare parts. Not on the surface. They go out for meals, retire to the bookshop’s back room some evenings to consume copious amounts of fine wine, sometimes even meet in the park to feed the ducks together. Much of the difference is in how close they sit or stand or walk next to each other. Sometimes their hands brush in passing and Crowley’s heart attempts to clamber up his throat, until he remembers that it isn’t _accidental_ anymore and there’s no reason to feel guilty—no reason to do anything besides grab hold and twine their fingers together, and feel that same heart seem to grow ten times larger in his corporation’s too-narrow ribcage. 

And kissing. Good Someone, the _kissing_. One day they spend doing nothing but, with Aziraphale occasionally stealing the breath to say that he really should open the shop, yet always being the first to lean back in for another. Turns out that an angel with a knot in his knickers to learn how to do something, and do it well, soon outpaces an old tempter with millennia of experience and the ability to do really interesting things with his tongue. 

Not that Crowley has seen Aziraphale’s knickers. He’s had his hands in the angel’s hair, under his coat, under his waistcoat—but that’s it, none of the sub-layers and certainly not below the belt. Which is fine. He’s fine with that. Yeah. Centuries upon centuries of imagining how such explorations might go aside, this is fine. He’d be a mess of nerves if he so much as tried, honestly.

Not that he isn’t a mess of nerves anyway, underneath it all. 

. . . Nope, this is completely fine. 

Still, every now and then, some things that would most likely be a very bad idea to say out loud well up in his throat. They’re in the park, having a picnic, taking in the beautiful summer weather, and Crowley finds himself looking idly up at the clouds hanging in the sky like pregnant sheep and something about rainbows is _just_ on the tips of his tongue, on the verge of squeezing out thanks to the lie by omission weighing so heavily on his conscience. 

He shouldn’t even have a conscience, but it seems to be his inverted cross to bear. 

The thing is . . . The thing is, Crowley _wants_ to tell Aziraphale about God’s little visit. That he has official confirmation from On High that he’s not so bad really. An unspoken promise that everything is going to be okay from here on out, that She won’t strike down another of Her creations that doesn’t really deserve it. 

Impulsively (to keep from saying anything), Crowley leans in, causing wrinkles in the picnic blanket, and kisses Aziraphale on a little patch of perfect skin by his right ear. It’s the spot where, on himself, his demon-mark bleeds dark from deep below flesh and bone—his own personal Do Not Touch sign, whereas Aziraphale’s is hidden in his tucked-away halo. As his lips connect he feels Aziraphale jump in surprise. Crowley is expecting this, because he’s never kissed Aziraphale here before, and the angel always hesitates for a fraction of a second whenever they try anything for the first time. His hand is already poised to catch the teacup listing in Aziraphale's fingers, to shore it up, keep it from spilling.

Nothing is supposed to spill, not the tea and not the truth. Telling Aziraphale that he’d never deserved to Fall in the first place might relieve some of Aziraphale’s fear for his own sanctity, but he would still hate the choice that Crowley has made. As a demon he knows this in his bones; no unfallen angel could possibly understand a failure to jump at the chance for redemption. They just don’t have the training for that sort of thing. 

After that crucial fraction of a second, he can feel Aziraphale’s cheek swell with a smile. 

“More tea, angel?” Crowley asks casually, settling back. “Another eclair?”

Aziraphale beams at him. “That would be delightful, my dear.” He happily accepts both, and distracts Crowley mightily by making a small sound of appreciation upon taking a bite. His eyes flick to Crowley’s and he gives a thoughtful hum before swallowing. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” _Almost anything_. Crowley raises his own wine glass to his lips, and woe to anyone who might try to lecture him about the potential danger of broken glass in a public park. 

“Well.” He sets his plate down on the blanket, retrieves a tartan napkin, and primly wipes at the corners of his mouth for non-existent remnants of pastry cream. “I believe I’ve shown considerable restraint in waiting, but as this is our fifth official ‘date’ type outing, I’d like to revisit the question of how long you’d been wanting to kiss me.”

Crowley chokes on his wine and has to discreetly lift his fingers into a quick snap behind his back to miracle the problem away before he ends up coughing and hacking like an idiot. He’d forgotten about that, or at least tucked it safely away to be ignored rather than dwelt upon, but in retrospect isn’t surprised that Aziraphale hasn’t. 

“Oh,” he mutters in a less than optimistic bid to buy himself some time before admitting to the answer. “That.”

Aziraphale shifts around to face him with an expectant look, one eyebrow arched as if to say, _Yes, dear boy,_ that. He has the same reserved-yet-anticipatory light in his eyes that’s usually reserved for awaiting the arrival of the first dish at a restaurant he’s never patronized before. 

Crowley feels his face start to warm. He’s been studying that expression for ages and still adjusting to now occasionally being the subject of it as well. “Nng,” he mumbles, and clears his throat. “Since the first time I’ve ever eaten an oyster, if you must know.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale says softly, almost a gasp and almost a sigh. Something in his face softens, melts perhaps, and he reaches to put a hand on Crowley’s knee. “That long?”

Crowley shrugs. “Yeah. You?” His nonchalance is an act; his hand is already on Aziraphale’s, spindly fingers curling around plump ones. 

“Nineteen forty-two,” the angel breathes almost reverently. Crowlet can feel the sincerity radiating off him. “That unfortunate church bombing incident where you saved my books.”

“And saved you,” the demon can’t help pointing out. 

“And me. And,” Aziraphale adds, “that lectern you keep in your office. Which I did notice, by the way, that night after Tadfield. I would’ve asked about its significance if you’d been awake.”

“Yeah. . . . Right, about that—” 

Aziraphale interrupts by leaning in and kissing him, catching Crowley’s lips and breath in mid-sentence. Practice makes perfect, and Aziraphale has been getting better and better about crossing that little chasm between them on his own initiative. No more hesitating when it comes to _this_. That fact fills Crowley with a heady, simmering hope, as he supposes it was intended to—because Aziraphale is absolutely self-aware enough to notice what he’s doing and the effect it has on his . . . whatever Crowley is to him. (He’s not so hopeful as to actually ask.)

When Aziraphale finally ends the kiss and sits back, he smiles in an unfocused sort of way. (It’s as though he’s just as blissed out by this new state of their relationship as Crowley is, but again, Crowley hasn’t asked.) “I’ve wanted to for just around eighty years,” he says, continuing the conversation as though it had never been paused. “But the . . . the sentiment underlying why rather predates the urge itself.”

Crowley finds himself nodding, hypnotized by those kiss-damp lips as a snake by a charmer. “Since you gave your sssword away,” he murmurs. Behind his sunglasses, a lapse in concentration allows his eyes to go fully serpentine and burnished gold. He notes distantly that he is holding tightly to Aziraphale’s hand now, clinging to this anchor, this lifeline. 

How is it that the one being still capable of wringing guilt out of his tarnished soul also has the capacity to make him feel so safe and whole?

Aziraphale clings back just as tightly. “When you turned up at the Bastille, I think,” he replies. “Or perhaps . . .”

“What, angel?”

“Perhaps when you asked about the children, before the Great Flood,” Aziraphale finishes, blushing. “It snuck up on me, you see. I didn’t quite realize. . . . Not even in that moment when you handed me the books, not really. But looking back, I find myself far better able to place the feelings, now.”

“‘S funny what you pick up when you’ve spent too much time up here,” Crowley muses. “Erm. Down here, for you. Meeting in the middle, like.”

Aziraphale hums in agreement and gives his hand a quick squeeze. Everything is just fine. 


	4. The Shadow Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stargazing for Alpha Centauri is a good date idea. Having to admit that you rejected God and told Her to go do something rude to Herself is not. 
> 
> Or: Crowley loved Heaven, then he loved Eden, then he loved Rome. . . . He's been around the block enough times to be able to spot the pattern.

The time that follows their impromptu first date is, in Aziraphale’s opinion, some of the best and worst since the stuff was invented. It’s as though he’s discovered a spring inside himself, a natural well filling to the brim, and he _wants_. With every second, moment, hour, day that passes, he finds it more and more difficult to get his fill of Crowley. Time spent with him is filling; kissing and touching, being touched, tentatively exploring this new world of each other together, is dangerously satisfying and yet never quite enough. Ordinarily he would berate himself inwardly for being so weak for this face of temptation, but he’s too busy being happy. 

So he tells himself that this wanting isn’t the need to fill a void left by his Grace slowly leaking away with each passing day. It isn’t; there are ways of checking and Aziraphale does so often, downright religiously these days, and he isn’t Falling. He prays hard for a sign as to whether or not he’s going down a wrong path but receives no discernible answer. All he can see, at the moment, is the wide expanse of desert before them, dunes of red-orange sand and vivid white salt planes painted in the last light of the setting sun. Crowley said he wants to show him something out here, and it was only a trifling hop, skip, and a jump to get to Africa with no authorities looking down (or up) on them about frivolous miracles. 

“They’re putting in a new crosswalk just down from the bookshop,” Crowley remarks casually one day as they stroll along side by side. “Looks like it’s going to be a colorful one.”

“Oh yes,” Aziraphale replies, though the majority of his attention is focused on the way their shoulders gently bump every now and then. “I read about it in the paper. It’s to be Soho’s first official rainbow crosswalk, you know. Apparently they’re all the rage in America—the more liberal parts, anyway.”

“Hm,” Crowley replies. After a moment, he adds, “Funny, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Rainbows. They started out as a ‘promise never to do it again’ sort of sign, and now it’s more of a diversity and social change kind of thing.”

Aziraphale considers this. He can still remember the first time he—anyone, really—had seen one, such long splendid strokes of color arching over the wide expanse of floodwaters. As spectacular and breathtaking as tonight’s fading sunset over the Namib Desert. Throughout both, he had noted the different emotions flitting across Crowley’s face, as deceptively unmoving as the sand-sea landscape that surrounds them now. “Yes. . . . fascinating how many different interpretations can evolve over time. The Greeks, you know, they considered rainbows a path made by a messenger between Earth and Heaven.”

“Hm,” Crowley says again. After another few moments, Aziraphale feels the demon’s hand fitting against his, gripping loosely. “Careful, s’getting dark.”

As much as part of Aziraphale wants more than just this simple contact, he’s grateful for Crowley’s care not to rush. “Thank you,” he murmurs with a soft smile into the gathering night. Every sweet gesture like this makes him want to say four letter words— _nice_ , for example, and _kind_ and _good_ , and that one he hasn’t yet dared to speak that starts with an _I_ and ends with a _you_. “So, what was it you wanted to show me out here? It’s getting quite dark, perhaps I should call up a light. . . .”

Crowley chuckles, a warm sound in the rapidly cooling desert air. He sounds happy, eager, and that alone is enough to make Aziraphale’s heart speed up a tick. “Best not, angel. This whole area is a dark sky preserve. No light pollution. See?” And he uses the hand entwined with Aziraphale’s to point up. 

Aziraphale tilts his head back to look, and gasps. 

The sky above them is _dark_ , but it isn’t black. He has made a study of darkness over the millenia—purely for the purpose of better understanding his hereditary enemy of course. Different shades of shadow and void, edging along the borders of blue or purple or green at the lowest possible end of the light spectrum. And dusted across the stretch of dark are the glow of stars, so crystal clear against the backdrop that they might have been pricked through a heavy drape with the finest and sharpest of needles, letting the light in to drip upon the Earth. 

“Crowley,” he breathes, “it’s _beautiful_.”

“Yeah.” Crowley nudges his shoulder and points, his hand a dark shape against the brilliant night sky. “Right there, yeah? Can’t see Alpha Centauri from the Northern Hemisphere.”

Aziraphale turns his head sharply to study Crowley’s face, but can’t divine any hint of reproach in the demon’s expression or voice. His sunglasses are off and slitted pupils blown wide to drink in all the available light, so much so that there’s barely a rim of gold around the edges. Back when the world had still been new and nights everywhere were more like this, humans who had encountered Crawly (as he’d still been known then) before dawn had taken the idea of a demon with eyes black as sin and run with it, literally and figuratively; Aziraphale is vaguely aware that it often crops up in popular culture even now. 

This isn’t a roundabout reminder of the offer Aziraphale had rejected before Tadfield. It’s something Crowley wants to share with him in spite of that—because he can’t have forgotten. Aziraphale bites his lip around the pang of guilt weighing down his tongue and follows the line of the pointing finger. 

“It’s actually three stars,” Crowley continues, “but the human eye can’t really make them out properly without a telescope. That—” his fingers trace the sky “—is the Southern Cross, right? Those four. You follow the crossbar to the left and that brightest one just there, that’s Alpha Centauri A.” 

“Yes?” Finding himself fighting the urge to lean in closer, get a better, more shared angle to see what Crowley is pointing at, Aziraphale lets out a breathless little chuckle and wonders why. If anyone is watching, they’ve done more incriminating things than just stand close to each other. He makes a conscious effort to relax. 

“Mm,” Crowley confirms, still wrapped up in the mini astronomy lesson. “Gave it a name, back . . . y’know, a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Can’t remember it now, or I’d’ve made sure the humans called it something more interesting.” It’s so _quiet_ in the desert; he shifts his snakeskin boots and the shifting sand hisses around the soles. “Anyway, it’s the biggest. Alpha Centauri B is just under it. It’s a double star system, so they stick pretty close.”

Aziraphale, having read just enough outdated astronomy books to have a theoretical sense of the cosmos, if not a terribly complete or practical one, nods. “I’ve heard of those. A binary star, isn’t it also called? Bound by a shared center of mass.” When he’d first stumbled across that definition he’d paused, fingertip resting thoughtfully on the page, and thought that it sounded terribly poetic. Two stellar bodies, forever circling each other, bound and inextricable but doomed never to meet because if they did, it would mean certain destruction. 

It hits him suddenly that Crowley knows it too. That in choosing a binary system as an escape plan, he had been both acknowledging the forces of their two sides that kept them apart and begging to defy them. 

But now? Now that the rules have changed, and they’ve made their own side? They can touch. Kiss. _Love._

Surely, surely that must be true. 

“Proxima Centauri,” Crowley is saying. Aziraphale glances at him again and marvels, that they can have this moment at all, with such an abundance of warmth welling up inside his chest. He _wants_. “Pipsqueak of a red dwarf, really, but if you put the effort in, watch it long enough . . .”

Aziraphale blinks hard and turns back to watching, vaguely aware as he sets in to wait that his face is screwed up in concentration as he coaxes his corporation’s eyes to sharpen and focus beyond the usual human limits. After a moment he lets out a breath of surprise. “It flared,” he murmurs. 

“Yeah,” Crowley agrees, letting his arm wander back down to his side, bumping the angel’s companionably. And if they’re standing a bit closer than they were before, it would be hard to say which of them had shrunk the distance. “Wouldn’t be noticeable on anything bigger and brighter. No one’s quite sure if it’s gravitationally bound to the other two or not.”

“Don't you know?” Aziraphale asks. He’s not sure why he’s holding his breath—in his defense, he’s never done this before. How do humans navigate this sort of thing, this kind of love? _Do_ humans love like this, as fiercely as binary stars, feeling as though any moment they might collide and supernova into oblivion?

Crowley shrugs. “Nah, can’t remember.” 

Aziraphale turns and tugs the demon into a fierce hug, squeezing him tight. 

“Aziraphale, wh—”

“I thought about laying down next to you while you slept,” Aziraphale blurts into Crowley’s collar. 

The words tumble out like an unintended confession, but Aziraphale makes no attempt to yank them back. Having said them out loud though, his face heating up in the rapidly cooling air, he is emboldened to pull back and meet Crowley’s slack-jawed stare without wavering. 

“You . . . what?” Crowley sputters. 

“I _missed_ you, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to, and I was lonely, and, and I . . . I thought about it. Quite a bit, actually. And I hope it’s not indecorous to say so, my dear, but I rather thought you deserved to know.” 

“You thought about it,” Crowley repeats. The look on his face, which Aziraphale can see perfectly well with his eyes so adjusted to the dark, is rapidly reforming into something like his scandalized delight on the wall of Eden, listening to a story about a sword. 

“Not in a _salacious_ way,” Aziraphale protests, blush intensifying. 

“And you didn’t actually,” Crowley said, in tones of one who knows the answer but wants to hear it confirmed. 

“I didn’t.” Aziraphale studies his face for any hints of buried disappointment, but is relieved not to spot any of the demon’s subtle tells. “I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to without knowing you, erm, were amenable to the idea.”

Crowley takes the opportunity to wind his arms around his waist with a mischievous smile. “You know I am, angel.”

“I know that _now_ , you old serpent. I just wanted to tell you because, well, I know you’ve been going slowly, and that it’s mostly on my account. And while I do appreciate the consideration, I want you to know that I do . . .” A familiar anxiety rises in his throat, the sense of standing a breath from the edge of a terrible precipice, and Aziraphale has to pause to try and swallow it back down. “I do want to, er, at some point . . .”

But Crowley, dear Crowley, saves him from the quandary of whether or how to put it into words with a kiss, and Aziraphale melts into it more fervently even than usual. Crowley holds him up. They are, after all, on the same side. 

After some time of drifting around on cloud nine, they remember it’s a cloudless night and return their gazes to the wide expanse of sky, Crowley’s arm still slung around Aziraphale’s waist and Aziraphale resting his head on Crowley’s shoulder. Their free hands find each other in the dark, fingers intertwining and holding tight. 

“You know,” Crowley says lightly, “that nebula there is called Angel’s Eye, and won Most Beautiful Celestial Object three years in a row.”

“Years hadn’t been invented then,” Aziraphale chides with a soft smile. 

Silently, he prays, _O Lord, I have never been happier. Please let this not be a sin_. _He’s so much more good than he wants to believe, and I can_ feel _how he loves me now, how attuned he strives to be, this shining other half of our binary star. Anyone that loves as fiercely and brightly as this can’t possibly be truly evil._

“Still,” the demon bluffs on. Aziraphale can tell because on the one hand he’s never heard of it, and on the other there’s a fine-drawn smile just at the corner of Crowley’s mouth, as he does whenever he’s just told a lie he’s particularly taken with. “That’s craftmanship, alright?”

“I think I can point out a nicer one,” Aziraphale replies archly. 

“Bollocks.”

“I’m quite sure I can.” He lifts his head and makes a show of considering, then points off towards a cluster of stars just above the horizon. “The Clever Serpent. Ever heard of it?”

Crowley snorts. “Can’t say that I have.”

“There’s a charming myth about it, and how it was the smartest, most dashing snake in all of, er . . . Greece? Yes, Greece." 

“Dashing, hm?”

Impulsively, Aziraphale turns and gives him a quick kiss on the side of his face, right on the black squiggle of demon-mark. It tingles against his lips, resisting the benediction, but he hopes—prays—that someday it might fade, releasing Crowley from the shackles of damnation. “Quite,” he murmurs. 

The heat gathering in Crowley’s face at that is more felt than seen. He clears his throat and gives Aziraphale a side-eyed glance. “Guess you’ll have to read it to me sometime, then. Oh, hey, what about that one up there? Got me buckets of compliments back in the day. . . .”

They stay there for hours, making up constellations and increasingly ridiculous names for them well into the night, until it’s time to return to England while there’s still enough cover of darkness to give their wings a proper stretch on the way back. 

* * *

_The demon known as Crowley had liked Eden. He had liked Heaven too, before he’d tumbled out of it. While watching the wall around Eden being dismantled, he’d regretted that it had been his temptation that had led to its dissolution. Though he would never admit it, he still longed for the reassuring permanence of Heaven; it would be pleasant to have some kind of Earth-place with even a fraction of that same staying-power._

_Then, there was_ **_Rome_** _._

_In the beginning, Rome was a motley collection of freed slaves, foreigners, and the standard well-off types that were offered citizenship in return for helping to build Romulus’ city. Crowley liked that; he also had decided that Etruria deserved to be taken down a peg or two. Perhaps someday Rome would grow to rival it. Maybe even grow to a size and population significant enough that the angel Aziraphale would be bound to visit._

_Every day it seemed there was a new invention, new foods, new intoxicating drinks, new shops opening, new cultures mixing for the first time. A lot of cultures coming together, clashing a bit, trying to find a rhythm, with all the wide range of serendipities and mishaps that such an experiment could produce._

_The citizens seemed receptive to his wiles, and showed a talent for borrowing and improving upon skills and ideas. They were petty and spiteful and brilliant and had upward class mobility because having money was a sign of favor from their gods; if one worked hard and could buy their way up the societal ladder, that was declared proof that the gods approved. Such delightful wiggle-room for encouraging the choice to sin was_ **_fun_** _._

_Crowley had high hopes that it would last, and every intention of nudging it toward doing so when he could._

_For a while, it did._

_But what Crowley failed to realize was that, when it came to eternity, nothing could rival Heaven. When he finally realized it would be best to not get too attached, it was already too late._

* * *

The sofa in the bookshop is soft and warm, and catches the light in the afternoon just right for a good curl up and nap; most importantly, it smells like Aziraphale. Crowley is happy to burrow into the blankets and pillows the angel has seen fit to pile on top of it for a snooze. 

Every now and then Aziraphale bustles past and fusses a bit, rearranging the blankets to cover him better or comb his fingers delicately through sleep-mussed red hair—checking on him, perhaps. Each touch is warm and full of reasons to not fall into another long sleep. The result is that Crowley doesn’t get any proper shut-eye even though his eyes stay lazily shut, but he’s quite content. He drifts just on the edge of sleep, sighing happily at his angel’s little attentions. It’s not until Aziraphale settles on the sofa by him with a book and a cup of cocoa that Crowley deigns to stir and stretch, silently demanding further attention. Aziraphale always obliges. 

Many an afternoon goes by this way, through the summer and well into autumn. And gradually, gradually, they pass more milestones. 

The first time Crowley unbuttons the waistcoat, he wonders if this is what having a heart attack feels like. He is so aware of his fingertips that it borders on uncomfortable, heartbeat so loud in his ears that he almost mistakes it for an approaching thunderstorm. Aziraphale has to help—which is just as well, because it’s a fiddly old garment that seems to have its own ideas about the conditions under which it will come undone. They laugh about it, and if Crowley’s laughter is a little jittery then Aziraphale is at least kind enough not to comment, just cup his face in both hands while Crowley slides the waistcoat off his shoulders and kiss him breathless. With the waistcoat off, he shrugs out of his own vest, matching Aziraphale layer for layer. 

Another day, when Crowley is trying to go home to give his plants a misting and a strong talking to about brown edges, Aziraphale snags him by a belt loop and tugs him back in. Crowley, caught on the wrong foot, wobbles and accidentally miracles both their belts five feet to the left. That’s as far as they get in terms of clothing, but Aziraphale does make a favorable comment about the lack of belt buckle jabbing into his stomach when Crowley finishes landing on him. 

When Aziraphale lets him undo the tartan bow tie and starts untucking, unbuttoning his shirt himself, Crowley is so caught up in the moment that he whips his own shirt right off. Just peels it up without bothering with buttons at all—over-the-head, toss-across-the-room efficiency. He doesn’t, at first, think about the disparity of layers, the minor fact that Aziraphale still has an undershirt (because of course he does) while he himself is bare. Goosebumps rise on his skin at the sudden chill of it—that blessed cold bloodedness rearing its inconvenient head again—and Aziraphale’s fingers run over them like Braille, drawing him closer to share warmth. 

It’s not just about temperature, though. The demon-mark on the side of his face isn’t the only sign of his Fall that’s been pressed into his human corporation. Back in the days of public bathhouses being in fashion Crowley had hidden it with a glamor so humans wouldn’t notice, and very pointedly situated himself so that Aziraphale wouldn’t see the burn scars splashed across his back. Just another little reminder of his Fall, lest he forget that he’d been a Seraph once and that he now only had the one pair of wings, albeit singed from white to black, because the other two had shielded them and burned away in the process.[1]

Luckily it’s an overcast day and neither angel nor demon has bothered to do anything about the gathering dimness in the shop yet. It all feels so good, that thing Aziraphale’s hands are doing in his hair is _exquisite_ , and there’s that heady, simmering heat bubbling up in Crowley that might be hope or might be lust, but either way makes him not want any of this to stop. 

Maybe it will be fine. 

* * *

Crowley’s skin is cool to the touch. Now that Aziraphale does touch often enough to register this, and especially as the weather has been cooling off recently, he strives to keep him warm. Pillows. Blankets. 

_I wonder_ , Aziraphale often thinks to himself, _if I’m not spoiling the dear boy too much with material comforts._

And himself. More and more, he gives himself to Crowley. 

One afternoon he willfully sheds his waistcoat, and Crowley’s hands on his shoulders nearly cause him to discorporate on the spot. Aziraphale has had massages in the past and can remember them all with perfect clarity, but this has him closing his eyes and sucking in a hard-fast breath. Something about the awareness that _Crowley_ is the one touching him feels like being plugged directly into an electrical socket. The angel’s eyes flutter closed, then briefly squeeze shut while no one can see as internally he reaches to check that his Grace is still there—so he relaxes, so much so that he even pleasantly surprises himself. 

“Good?” Crowley asks. 

“Heavenly,” Aziraphale breathes. 

Nimble fingers smooth up and down his spine, dig in around the shoulder blades and the space where his wings are tucked away, and all Aziraphale can think about is how much he wants to do this for Crowley too. He wants bare skin under his hands so badly that they twitch in his lap, wants to feel it warming beneath his touch. He _wants_. 

Another day, after Crowley has sucked a small halo of a bruise onto his neck, Aziraphale kisses him hard and guides the demon’s hands to start undoing his bow tie. Part of him wants Crowley to do it without prompting, though rationally he knows that it’s not in the cards this first time around because Crowley is letting him set the pace—the rest of him is boiling with the feeling of being too confined and yearning to burst free. He moans into the kiss and starts unbuttoning his own shirt, knowing that Crowley will eagerly fling his own off to follow suit. 

Aziraphale is delighted to find that Crowley considers undershirts something that happen to other people, and that, as far as the angel is concerned, is glorious. 

Such a shame that it’s an overcast day and neither angel nor demon has bothered to do anything about the gathering dimness in the shop yet. Aziraphale would like to see all of Crowley stretched out before him—that’s not in the cards for this time either though, but he feels sure it will happen someday. Crowley is pressed against him on the sofa, almost draped across him, and Aziraphale’s trousers are definitely feeling tight as well, though at the moment he’s not yet ready to stop and do anything about it. It all feels so good, with his hands buried in Crowley’s flaming hair to hold him close for more lovely kisses the way Aziraphale knows he likes, and there’s no force on Heaven or Earth that could make Aziraphale want any of this to stop. Aziraphale can feel the heat of Crowley's skin through his trousers. He should edge away, really he should, but . . .

Then his hands slide to Crowley’s shoulders, feel that slight hitch of breath that he takes as a good sign, and dip into as-yet-unexplored territory of exposed collarbones, ribs, navel. It’s not until he reaches around to the demon’s back that he hesitates. 

Because the skin is uneven. 

Because those are burn scars. 

Because Aziraphale has lived through enough wars to recognize in the space of a few seconds’ exploration how they center around where Crowley’s wings are tucked away, and where . . . 

Aziraphale feels as though he’s been suddenly encased in ice. 

. . . Where other sets of wings might once have been. 

* * *

Once, Aziraphale had asked Crowley what it felt like to Fall.

It had seemed like a reasonable question at the time, with the fall of Rome still so fresh for both of them, and also because the word kept cropping up in conversation. Crowley kept using it, otherwise Aziraphale never would have presumed—but perhaps, he thought, it wasn’t such a sore subject after all. Perhaps demons traded stories of their respective tumbles from Grace all the time, trying to one up each other with heinous sins and spectacular dives the way human males bragged about penis size. 

They were also both very drunk, which should have been a hint not to ask. If Aziraphale’s wits were scattered enough to ask, and they’d been matching each other drink for drink all night, then Crowley’s were scattered enough to answer. Moreso, even, because the demon had picked at his own dinner so there was nothing in his stomach to soak up the alcohol. 

“What was it like?” Crowley repeated. From the terribly blank look on his face, Aziraphale already wished that he hadn’t asked. It looked as though the demon was dangerously close to actually giving a real answer instead of brushing it off as half expected. “Huh. Never thought about putting it to wordsss before. . . .”

“You don’t have to,” Aziraphale tried. He looked around desperately for a distraction, and tried to find it by refilling their cups from the most recent jug of house brown. “Look, les’ just . . . We’ll have a little drink. Have a little drink, Crowley.”

Crowley took the proffered cup but didn’t bring it to his mouth. The little pair of tinted glasses he’d worn since 41 AD (had it really been over four centuries already?) were long gone amidst the clutter on the tabletop and his reptilian eyes were fixed moodily off into the distance. “D’you know the thing,” he said, “the per . . . perspective thing where you don’t really know what eternity means until things come to an end?”

“Ah. . . .” Aziraphale took an uneasy sip from his own cup. “No?”

“Sure y’do,” Crowley insisted. “Everything that happened before God introduced the concept of linear time. There weren’t any words for eternity back then, because it just . . . was what it always was. But that all stopped around the time She made all of this. . . . everything.” He made an expansive gesture with his free hand, indicating the entire room and possibly the entire world as well. “So that happens, and you go on thinking, well, hey, that was just a one-off, that big upheaving change thing. Now everything is how it’s always going to be, ‘cos that’s what feels natural. Hasn’t been anything else, right? But then. Then the next big change comes and it’s agony. _That’s_ when you learn what eternity means.” 

“It is?” Aziraphale was listening with rapt attention in spite of himself. 

“Yeah. Is. Because . . . when you Fall, you don’t know how far you have to go, or how long it’s gonna take, or what you’re going to be when it’s over. Or if it ever will _be_ over. Or if you’ll even still exist if it does. Maybe it’s just what you’ll be doing for the rest of forever, that’s just how it’s going to be from now on. But maybe it won’t, because there’s a precedent for change now, but that’s not a guarantee it’ll happen again. So you Fall, and just. Wait to find out. _That_ is when you learn what eternity means.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale considered that for a moment. He supposed he could imagine that, the uncertainty and infinite loneliness of it. “That sounds . . . just awful.” But privately, he thought it didn’t sound as terrible as he’d always imagined. 

Crowley must have seen some of that in his face somewhere, because the demon’s lip twisted and he leaned forward in his chair so quickly that both of his elbows banged onto the table. “And you burn,” he snarled, eyes glowing with narrowly banked emotions, “the whole. Way. Down.”

* * *

Suddenly the terrifying edge before that Fall seems unbearably close. 

_The whole way down_. For the first time Aziraphale can really, viscerally imagine what that means. The proof that it could so easily happen is at his fingertips. 

“Angel,” Crowley says, voice rough, shrugging the touch off and moving off his lap, giving him space. Not disappointed; from the way his jaw is set and face determinedly expressionless, Aziraphale realizes that he’s _devastated._

Aziraphale ducks his head to avoid meeting the demon’s gaze, staring at his hands in his all too empty lap. “I’m sorry.” He knows that Crowley felt the flinch, and how hard it must be not to take it personally. 

There’s a question stuck in the air between them, waiting for someone to pluck it down and ask, but Aziraphale doesn’t know what it is. Not about the scars; he doesn’t need to ask to know that. 

“You . . . You don’t have to apologize.” 

“I do, though.” Aziraphale forces himself to look up and meet Crowley’s eyes. “We haven’t talked about it, but perhaps we should. I’m . . . I’m afraid of . . . going too far. Not with Heaven,” he rushes to add, seeing that Crowley is about to interrupt. “Not exactly. I don’t want to . . . stray so far from my devotion to God. I don’t want to . . . to Fall.”

“And I’m a constant reminder that you could, aren’t I,” Crowey spits bitterly. 

“No!” 

Why is it so damned difficult to sit up? Aziraphale struggles out of the nest of pillows and blankets, wondering the whole way when they’d ended up sinking into it. He hadn’t noticed at the time, and that’s an unsettling hole in his memory for a being used to remembering everything. 

“I mean . . . For Someone’s sake, Crowley, I don’t _know_. It isn’t you. You’re so—I know you hate it when I say this, but you’re a _good person_. This wouldn’t be an _issue_ if She could just _see_ that, the way I can.”

Something flickers in Crowley’s eyes and this time he’s the one who turns away, using a miracle to call his shirt to his hand and then shoving his head into it. Muffled, he says, “Isn’t She supposed to see everything?” His head pops out the top, all ruffled hair and sharp angles, and there is _definitely_ something he’s trying to keep Aziraphale from seeing—something sad, defiant, afraid. Catching the angel studying him, he snaps his fingers and Aziraphale has to close his eyes momentarily against the sudden light cutting through the gloom. “Can’t just sit around wanting to tell Her something She already knows. Bloody waste of time, that.” 

Urgent emotions are welling up in Aziraphale, catching in his throat, bringing tears to his eyes—because he’s upset, and Crowley is upset, and everything is so complicated when he wishes (prays) to Heaven that it wasn’t. “But just think how much easier everything would be,” he presses, reaching through the frigid space between them and gripping Crowley’s shoulder a shade desperately. “We’re on our own side, yes, but if you could be Forgiven, too—”

Crowley doesn’t shrug him off, but he doesn’t particularly react to the touch either. He seems almost frozen. Conflicted. “Never going to happen, angel.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Actually, I do.” Crowley takes a deep breath, appearing to reach the summit of some monumental decision, and turns his head to pin Aziraphale in place with his eyes, which have gone more snakelike than the angel has ever seen save for when they’ve been in actual, not-exactly-mortal peril. “She came to visit me in my flat, the day I woke up. And She offered. . . . She _offered_.”

“Oh Crowley,” Aziraphale starts, “that’s _wonderf—_ ”

And then the most horrible words that have ever had the misfortune to fall on Aziraphale’s ears crash into place, tumbling from the demon’s incriminatingly kiss-reddened lips like stones. 

“I turned Her down.”

* * *

“I turned Her down,” Crowley says quickly, talking over Aziraphale and feeling like an arse and an idiot for doing it, but he _needs_ to get this out. Because Aziraphale is right, they’ve been dancing around the issue for months, and it’s time to get all the why’s and wherefore’s out in the open. 

He feels like a tube of toothpaste being squeezed in the middle[2], all squashed in his body with his head about to explode and his chest caught in a vice. 

Aziraphale stares at him blankly for a long moment, then— 

“You . . .” 

Eyes widening and mouth falling open in stunned disbelief. 

“You . . .” 

And firming into a rictus of that righteous fury that angels do so well. Never in a million years would Crowley miss _that_ about the heavenly host. 

“You _what_?”

This is so, so much worse than an exclamation about a lost sword. This is exactly what Crowley has been afraid of, why he’s spent so much time fighting the urge to tell him.

“How could you have _turned Her down?_ ” Abruptly, Aziraphale is up and pacing, crossing back and forth in front of the sofa in short, agitated strides. “It would have solved— How could you not _tell_ me?”

At the accusatory tone, Crowley’s defenses, and sunglasses, snap into place. “Ex _cuse_ me?” 

He isn’t angry until about halfway through the first word, but by the last word he’s absolutely furious. Why the Hell not? Panic, wrath . . . neither will make much of a difference in the face of angelic judgement, and the anger is grounding. He might as well get through this feeling more like himself.

“I seem to remember _you_ outright lying to me about whether you had the Antichrist’s address,” Crowley growls, dredging this sore subject up with unexpected ease. He’d never thought about the fact that he’d been holding onto that one before. 

“That’s different,” Aziraphale insists stiffly. “We were on different sides. We weren’t _supposed_ to be able to trust each other!”

Crowley coughs out a strangled laugh at the punch to the gut _that_ one was. “Glad to see I wasted my time trusting you then,” he retorts, and shoves himself up from the couch. 

Time to go, time to run. . . . As furious and hurt and rejected as he already feels—and as much as Aziraphale, being just a bit of a bastard, is surely capable of wrenching his hackles up even higher now—he doesn’t want this to escalate. For years his motto has been better to brake and back off than go too fast, and it’s gotten them this far despite all the barriers in their way. 

“You know that’s not what I meant!” Aziraphale steps forcefully into his path, glaring fit to set any adversary in his path on fire. “Honestly, Crowley, all this time you let me think that helping save the world had given you the confidence to make your affections clear, when really it was just . . . biting your thumb at the Almighty!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Crowley snaps automatically. Because, after all this time, he knows where Aziraphale’s sore spots are. How can he know the angel so well, yet at times like this feel so unseen in return? “What you mean is, you value safety over me, and you’re pissed because I could’ve made things _safe_ for you but I didn’t.”

“I—” Aziraphale starts, then seems to realize that he can’t possibly refute that. God, that fear of Falling is so _predictable_. “It, it would have been safer for _both_ of us, Crowley, why can’t you see that? It could have been better, but you’re so damned stubborn!”

“ _I’m_ stubborn?” Crowley bites down on a bitter laugh. “You’re the one still trying to hold onto the false security of Heaven. _Fuck_ that. _Fuck_ safety. Fuck _you_ , if you really think I’m so damned good then what the fuck is wrong with me as I am now? But noooooo, because obviously if I’m damned then I can’t be any good at keeping you from Falling off your pedestal. Can’t be any good at that until I’m saved or whatever, so until then you can just fuck right off!”

With a distant pang only felt as fuel for the fire in his current state, Crowley notes that Aziraphale hasn’t yet thought to apply a miracle to his bruised lips, heal and hide the evidence of his transgression. The angel’s eyes flash as he notices Crowley looking, and a second later the incriminating redness is gone from his lips. Like it never happened, perhaps never even mattered, and is better off without. 

Crowley was wrong. Aziraphale knows how to play his weak points like a violin. What gets him the most, more than words, are actions. 

He storms right up to the angel, and outside the shop the night is responding in kind—could be either of them doing that at this point, or both. “After a certain point, Aziraphale,” he snarls, “it stops mattering what you _meant_. You didn’t trust me enough to tell me about Tadfield before you went and got yourself discorporated. When I begged you to run off with me, you said _I_ was the ridiculous one. Every time you’ve called me foul fiend and insisted that evil contains the seeds of its own destruction, it doesn’t _matter_ that you were just reciting party lines, you were always just trying to put me off to make yourself more comfortable. So guess what?” Crowley jabs him in the chest with a finger for emphasis. “I put off telling you something I knew would make you uncomfortable, even though what it _means_ is that She doesn’t even bloody _mind_!”

Aziraphale isn’t backing down, doesn’t so much as flinch at the jab. “And there you go claiming to know the Ineffable,” he snaps just as heatedly. “Insider knowledge gleaned from a bite of the apple!”

 _You’re my godblesséd apple,_ Crowley thinks, but that much, at least, he knows better than to say aloud. Or at least, he can’t be bothered to try and explain it, he’s so angry. And the thing is. . . . The thing is, he’s always understood Aziraphale’s reluctance and dodging, because he remembers what Heaven is like. He knows first-hand how arbitrary and capricious it can be, how dictatorial and vindictive. God set the tone for that ages ago, and the archangels who act in Her name took it as bloody Gospel. 

That’s why when Aziraphale had really thought, in the leadup to the Apocalypse, that Heaven might _want_ to avert a war to end everything, it had been downright painful to watch. They wouldn’t. They didn’t. They don’t. And they don’t value Aziraphale either—not the way he _deserves_ , not the way Crowley does. 

“Six thousand years,” Crowley says instead, “and not _once_ have I asked you to be anything but the angel I fell in love with, the person you’ve always bloody been—”

“You ask me to do things that go against my nature as an angel all the time! The whole Arrangement was your plot to get me to do your temptations for you!”

He grinds his teeth, which in forgetting to imagine them otherwise are beginning to look a little too fang-like. “Not anything I genuinely think would make you Fall! But you, _you_ , with your ‘may you be forgiven’ and your ‘just think how much easier everything would be,’ wanting _me_ to turn _my_ whole existence and who I am upside down!”

“Well if actions speak so much louder than words, _foul fiend_ , why is it that as soon as you get what you’ve wanted out of me, you’re done, hm? Talk me into standing against Heaven and Hell with you, all those dramatic proclamations about being on _Our Side_ now, and then as soon as the Apocalypse is well and averted you go straight back to your creature comforts and I don’t hear from you for _seven bloody years_!”

“Are you,” Crowley sputters, intending to follow up with _fucking serious_ , but the words harden and calcify on his tongue, never making it past his lips. Does he want to hear an answer to that? No, he fucking doesn’t. So instead, he switches gears and slams into a desperate attempt at a u-turn. “I should have just saved myself the trouble and gone off to Alpha Centauri after all!”

Aziraphale blinks, as though he somehow never thought that particular shot might ever be fired. For the briefest of instances there is naked hurt there . . . and then his armor of righteousness is back, and he answers in kind. 

“Fine, then go! Talk is cheap, and I've never known you to skimp on expense. See if I think about you when you’re off among the stars!”

“ _Fine_!”

Crowley shoulders roughly past him and plummets out of the bookshop into the gathering sleet like a falling star searching for the perfect crash landing. He slams his way into the Bentley and sparks the engine with a thought, and it all feels like moving through a nightmare—another thing demons aren’t supposed to have, but he’s weathered a few over the years. It doesn’t quite seem real, while at the same time it feels as though he’s burning up from the inside out. The internal forgefire of it is probably making the scars on his back glow. At any rate, they itch terribly like they haven’t in centuries.

Aziraphale. His angel. The apple of his Eden, the only fruit he’s tasted since the Original Sin that hasn’t tasted like dust, and who might as well be on the bloody moon now for how attainable he is. As the last of the day bleeds into nightfall and storm, the Bentley burns rubber with how quickly it speeds out of Soho. 

And never, in his entire existence, has Crowley hated himself so much for opening his cursed mouth and bringing about the dissolution of something wonderful. 

* * *

1He has it a little easier than most other demons, at least. Other demons’ wings had been stripped to bone or refashioned into bat wings or, if you’re as bitter as Satan still is about the whole thing, are still actively smoldering. Crowley is just grateful that Aziraphale isn’t on close enough terms with anyone else from Downstairs to realize this. Return to text

2Not that Crowley has ever owned toothpaste, having no need for it personally, but he’s seen commercials and so on. Enough to get the gist.Return to text


	5. We Are A Woven Thread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a long time now, Crowley has harbored the unsettling knowledge that he still, somehow, has something to lose. Now that he’s lost it, he’s not sure if he’s the same person anymore. The feeling is somewhere between distinctly demonic . . . and uncomfortably human. 
> 
> Or: Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are handling the fallout from their argument very well. Both of them end up, for better or worse, finding someone to talk it out with.

_What happened in the beginning was this: a few angels, before they had been named as such, realized there was such a thing as_ **_could be_** _._

 _What happened gradually over the next half-dozen millenia between a particular angel and a particular demon was this: between the two of them, and humanity’s many,_ many _examples, Aziraphale and Crawly realized that_ ** _could be_** _wasn’t singular._

_Really, it began when the demon fell in love. Demons are, by nature, creatures that tend to cross a lot of forbidden lines, and this was his. Crawly realized eventually what he had done and regretted it terribly . . . ish. As with his Fall from Grace, it was something that shaped who and what he was so fundamentally that there was no comfortable way to imagine going back. But there was no denying from that point that everything had changed._

_He began to wonder,_ ** _what if_** _. What if he said or did just the right thing and the angel began to look at him differently? What if, some day, the angel might love him in return? It was strange, this love—fierce and protective and covetous, but above all he wanted the angel to be happy_ _and knew, painfully, that no angel could ever be happy with a demon. He asked himself, what if Aziraphale could love me? And he answered himself: then Aziraphale would be damned._

_For this reason, Crawly tried to stay away. He tried reinventing himself in the hopes that it would change the way he felt. He tried changing his name, telling himself that Crowley would be a better demon, Crowley would not make the same mistakes, Crowley would not love or wonder about what ifs._

_Demons lie. A lot._

_The demon Crowley began experimenting with_ **_distraction_** _, a fascinating human invention by which they managed to tune out the vast universe around them and even sometimes become bored. He never took it quite that far, out of vague concern that he might never be able to tune back in again, but he started dabbling in things like sleep and alcohol. And for a while, it was good._

* * *

It’s been weeks, months, _ages_ , and everything Crowley has ever hoped to one day take for granted still feels irreparably shattered. He doesn’t even have the comfort of calling and staying silent on the line just to hear the angel’s voice, because Aziraphale is quite adept at expecting his rotary phone to have caller ID; when Crowley calls, he simply doesn’t pick up. 

And even that Crowley feels torn about, because he knows a part of him, upon hearing that voice, would want to apologize for everything and try to get things back the way they were. He would just end up apologizing for putting Aziraphale in danger of Falling, when he genuinely doesn’t think he has. 

The way things were had been fine. Novel, exhilarating, lovely, everything he’d ever dared to want . . . but not perfect. Now that he’s admitted that (both to himself and very, very loudly to Aziraphale), Crowley doesn’t want to settle for the sort of half-baked commitment the angel had been offering him so far, the “I want you too, _except_ ” of it. 

This all or nothing way of loving could be the death of him, though. Every time he drives past the bookstore and knows, _knows_ that if he walked in Aziraphale would no longer be pleased to see him, Crowley hurts all over again. Really, he should stop trying to call, stop pointing the Bentley towards Soho at all, but it’s like an itch he can’t help scratching. 

After Falling, that was supposed to be it. Everything taken away, stripped to the bone, nothing left except pain and anger and burning resentment, and the urge to pass all that on to others in the hopes that it might hurt less—it’s never supposed to, otherwise it wouldn’t be much of a punishment. But for a long time now, Crowley has harbored the unsettling knowledge that he still, somehow, has something to lose. 

Now that he’s lost it, he’s not sure if he’s the same person anymore. The feeling is somewhere between distinctly demonic . . . and uncomfortably human. 

* * *

It’s been weeks, months, _ages_ , and everything Aziraphale had been slowly but surely growing accustomed to still feels irreparably shattered. Occasionally Crowley calls—he can feel the demonic energy through the phone line as soon as he touches the handset. Whenever Aziraphale goes to answer and feels that familiar static shock-like sensation, he freezes up and simply can’t bring himself to answer. 

And even though Aziraphale feels badly about that, he’s still a heady mix of baffled and furious over what Crowley had been hiding from him. Who in their right mind would turn down an opportunity to escape eternal damnation? Enough to _lie_ about it? When taking the offer would have meant they could be together without complication or fear of punishment?

The way things were had been lovely, but always faintly colored by anxiety. Aziraphale feels incredibly cheated at not being able to have fully enjoyed it, especially now that . . . well. It’s all over now. Best not to dwell on it if he can avoid doing so. Which he absolutely can. Angels are especially adept at rising above temptation, and in the past six millenia he’s had more exposure and practice than most. So of course he can. 

Except when the phone rings, he always hurries to try and answer it, even when he can’t bring himself to do so, or it isn’t Crowley calling after all. Except when the bell above the shop door chimes, his head snaps up from whatever he’s doing, even though it’s never the demon he’s somehow come to think of as _his_ anymore. 

Aziraphale wonders sometimes if he truly has fallen—not from Grace, but in _love_. This irrational, insatiable longing for that which he can’t have, which has proven itself too dishonest and too tainted to even want to change, can’t possibly be anything else but the sort of foolish love he’s read about in human books, can it? 

And yet, trying to think of Crowley as tainted never fails to make him even more upset. His stomach churns and his vision clouds over, and as a wave of _what have I he You done, why is this happening, where am I meant to go from here_ crashes over him, Aziraphale feels a pang through his heart that he cannot stoically abide.

He tries not to think about it at all. If he has to miracle his favorite cocoa mug back together from accidentally setting it down too hard in a sudden flair of emotions one more time, he might have some sort of breakdown. 

* * *

Perhaps what he needs, Crowley decides, is a change of scenery. Shake things up a bit. He’s tired of prowling his flat, terrorizing the plants.[1] Tired of trying to sleep through this misery and butting into a brick wall of insomnia. Tired of cruising the same circuits through and around London listening to the Best of Queen—sorry Freddie, nothing personal. 

That’s how he finds himself music shopping on a Tuesday afternoon. At first, he’s appreciative from a purely infernal perspective of how annoyingly difficult it is to find a brick and mortar store that sells actual CDs these days—it’s all either vintage records or online streaming or whatever. The appreciation gradually fades into restless irritation as he can’t find anything that suits his mood. 

“Listen,” he snaps at the sales associate who’s attempting to help him, “if I wanted the Beatles, I would be able to do my own shopping. There’s a whole bloody _wall_ of the Beatles right over bloody there. I don’t want classic rock, I want—”

“Folk rock?” the sales associate suggests desperately. Crowley is, after all, unabashedly channeling the archetype of the worst possible customer. “Maybe—” the man gropes around in a nearby box of jumbled cd cases and looks desperately at the first one he comes up with “—Simon and Garfunkel?”

Crowley snatches it out of his hands. “What’s on this?” His eyes narrow behind his sunglasses and he reads aloud in menacing tones. “‘The Sound of Silence’? ‘Somewhere They Can’t Find Me’? ‘I Am A Rock’?”

The sales associate looks as though he would rather be anywhere else right now. He starts to turn back to the cd bin for another try, but Crowley waves him off—all the demon really wanted was to personally inflict suffering on something more intelligent than a plant. 

“Whatever, this’ll be fine. I want two copies. And two copies of whichever one has the song with all the herbs.”

He leaves the shop and jams one disc each of _The Sound of Silence_ (1966) and _Bridge Over Troubled Water_ (1970) into the Bentley’s much embellished sound system, miracling the second copies back to his flat in case he forgets to take these out of the car sometime in the next fortnight.[2]

* * *

Perhaps what he needs, Aziraphale decides, is a change of scenery. He puts on his coat and locks up the bookshop, not intending to go terribly far—but before long he’s on a bus that’s trundling, quite to the driver’s surprise, out to the country. When he disembarks, it’s across the street from Tadfield’s town green. 

It’s not quite the same as he remembers. While there’s still a lingering sense of love woven into the lay lines of the place, it seems more like an echo than anything else. Aziraphale is under no illusions that Adam Young’s meddling with reality included diminishing his own powers; the feeling is more of a recently vacated room. After all, Adam would be nineteen or twenty by now. Gone off to university somewhere, Aziraphale expects, God only knows where. 

At any rate, the air here is clearer than London. Pleasantly pastoral. Aziraphale strolls aimlessly around the town, eventually picking a country lane at random and trotting off along the side of it into the still winter afternoon. Aside from a single evening at a single bus stop, Aziraphale has never actually spent much time with Crowley here while in his own corporation, which is buffer enough for his raw feelings. Here, he can feel almost content. 

The sudden chime of a bell startles the angel out of his pleasantly bland thoughts. A bicycle slows to a stop alongside him and a woman wearing a curiously bulky rucksack puts one foot down on the gravel lane to keep her balance. 

“I know you from somewhere,” the woman says thoughtfully. “Don’t I? From . . . something important.”

Aziraphale, who never forgets a face, smiles politely. “I can’t see how that would be terribly likely,” he fibs gently. 

The human race’s collective memory of the aborted Apocalypse has mostly faded into a confused muddle over the past near-decade, which is more or less par for the course from what he’s observed of them since their creation. He remembers the girl with Agnes Nutter’s book, of course, for all that she’s older now, with her hair coiled back into a different no-nonsense style and glasses swapped for contact lenses—but it’s probably for the best that she doesn’t recall too many of the supernatural details. 

“No, you definitely look familiar,” she presses with a tiny frown of concentration. 

Aziraphale nearly expends a small miracle to send her on her way, but a coo from the rucksack catches his attention. The woman hears it too, and dismounts the bike with a quiet tsk and shrugs the thing off one shoulder to pull it around and rest more conveniently on the bike seat in one fluid motion. 

The sound, it turns out, is from a baby, and the rucksack is actually some sort of papoose-like carrier. Aziraphale, who doesn’t mind kids as long as they’re small or sensible enough not to rip or tear the pages of a book, can’t help himself. He smiles beatifically and coos back. 

“Who’s this little one then?” he asks.

* * *

In Heaven, there are Choirs. Before Falling, Crowley had been a part of one of the most illustrious Choirs in the First Sphere—the Seraphim, fiery six-winged beings with two wings to cover their faces, two wings to cover their feet, and two wings with which to fly. In addition to star building, his responsibilities had included serving as a caretaker of God's throne and continuously shouting praises along the lines of, _Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of Her glory!_

This was, and is, not at all choral in the modern earthly sense, and to Crowley’s vague chagrin has resulted in the fact that he is not especially good at carrying a tune. 

“I’ve built walls,” Crowley bellows along with the music, skidding through a mostly-yellow traffic signal. “A fortress deep and mighty! That none! May! Pen-e-trate!”

It’s comforting and mindless to ‘sing’ along. He remembers all the words from . . . Woodstock? No, that had been someone else doing a cover of America, neither Simon nor Garfunkel had deigned to show. Fun gig, though. Hell had issued him a commendation for all the drug use and promiscuity. 

He’d liked the duo, though, ever since he’d read a critical review in a back copy of Rolling Stone magazine that described their music as "questionable . . . it exudes a sense of process, and it is slick, and nothing too much happens." Based on that alone, he’d made sure to catch a live performance of theirs in 1982. 

“I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain,” Crowley continues, really ripping into the lyrics and snarling them out at his fellow drivers. “It’s _laughter_ and it’s _loving_ I disdain! I am a rock; I am an i-i-islan—OI, GET OUT OF THE STREET!”

There’s a brief skid, and the honking of other cars as they whip around him with various levels of engine-revving and rude gestures. 

Crowley stops miraculously just in time to avoid hitting the young jaywalker and bursts out of the car with the music still blaring. “Who let you out in public?” he snarls at the newest target of his foul mood. 

Behind him, the song pouring out of the Bentley’s speakers continues to croon that _I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died; if I never loved I never would have cried_. 

The young man, however, doesn’t seem at all cowed. He turns his curly head and gives the demon a cheerful wave with the hand not currently laden with philosophy textbooks. 

“Wotcher, Crowley,” a university-aged Adam Young says cheerfully. “How are you?”

* * *

The baby’s name, Aziraphale learns, is Iris. He’s a bit puzzled at first, but readily listens as he and the woman walk companionably down the lane and she enlightens him about how male bits didn’t necessarily mean the child is a boy. One doesn’t actually know a child’s gender for sure, she explains, until said child is old enough to decide for themselves. Young Iris, at only fourteen months of age, would remain something of a mystery for a while yet. 

“I see. How interesting,” Aziraphale says, and means it. The last time he’d witnessed such a large cultural movement to change the perception of gender it had been women starting to wearing trousers in public.

“And I’m Anathema,” she continues, warming considerably the more it becomes clear that he isn’t going to criticize her parenting methods. “Anathema Device. My husband, Newt, took my last name when we got married. He said that Pulsifer just wasn’t doing it for him anymore. I think he was convinced that there was some kind of family curse tied to the name, and honestly he _has_ had a lot more luck with computers ever since we made it official.”

“Aziraphale,” replies Aziraphale. He doesn’t bother with any of his usual aliases because he’s rapidly coming to the conclusion that if there are humans resilient enough to cope with the knowledge that angels of Heaven are real, Anathema is one of them. 

Anathema’s eyes grow wide as she hears the name. “Yes. . . . You were there, weren’t you? When it all. . . . When everything happened. I guess it’s one of those things that people aren’t really supposed to remember, but my family’s been involved in witchcraft of one kind or another since the sixteen hundreds. You and that other one, the redhead.” At the shadow that passes over Aziraphale’s face at the mention of Crowley, she seems to rein herself in a bit. “Sorry, looks like I hit a nerve.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Aziraphale hastens to assure her. “He’s. . . . It’s just. . . . We’ve had a bit of a falling out, I’m afraid. He’s quite an unreasonable person, when you get right down to it.”

“Ah,” Anathema says in a way that implies she’s wildly curious to know more, but knows better than to ask.[3] “Well, we’re almost back to the house. Would you like to come in? As a thank you for the company and, you know. Helping avert the Apocalypse.” She pauses, then shoots him an arch look. “Are you the ‘principalitee whose cocoa doth grow cold’ that Agnes mentioned in prophecy number three thousand and eight?"

“Oh, really,” Aziraphale chuckles, shaking his head . . . then sighs and nods. Bless humans and their shrewdness, but it does catch him on the wrong footing at times. Quite embarrassing, for someone of his age and intelligence. “I’m afraid so.”

“Well then,” she says, all business and expat who’s had nearly a decade to get used to the English, as though it’s the most obvious follow-up question in the world, “do you want tea or cocoa?”

* * *

“This is the stupidest restaurant I’ve ever been in,” Crowley says deadpan. “And that,” he adds with a glance at Adam over the top of his sunglasses in the harsh white lighting, “is saying something.”

“I like it,” Adam declares. “It’s American, it’s cool.”

“Met many of them, have you?” Crowley mutters. His attention drops back down to the Burger and Shake menu. 

Adam ignores the comment. “So what do you think, are you getting the milkshake with bourbon in it or the milkshake with tequila and rum?”

“I don’t do milkshakes, and both of those sound hideous,” Crowley protests, not for the first time. For all that he is _technically_ no longer precisely aligned with Hell and Adam is _technically_ no longer precisely the spawn of Satan according to the current state of reality, he feels like a put-upon low level employee from a sitcom or cheesy movie that’s been singled out to keep the boss’s son entertained for a day. 

Rolling his eyes, Adam flags down a convenient waiter and orders one of each, then settles back in his booth seat with the air of a teenage king ready to hold court.[4] “Alright, what’s the trouble then? Is Down There giving you a hard time again, or did you have a row with your angel mate?”

“I really hate this line of questioning,” Crowley replies with faux-brightness. “Can I go? And aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“Yeah, but it’s just one philosophy lecture; I can catch up later. And Professor Inri is really cool, he won’t mind.” Adam smirks. “It’s the second one, isn’t it?”

“. . . . None of your business, kid.”

“That’s just stubborn grownup talk for ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’” Adam points out with infuriating reasonableness, and accuracy. “But look, if you really didn’t want to talk about it you wouldn’t be here. C’mon, you guys faced down Heaven and Hell, that _can’t_ be your best poker face. You’re not really trying.”

Crowley would like to argue with that on principle, but at the moment the prospect just seems so . . . tiring. He’s not a rock, or an island. He’s just a crabby old demon with a lot on his mind, and the person he usually talks things out with won’t take his calls. 

“Fine, I’m not,” he admits grumpily. 

“So?” prompts the Antichrist. “What happened?”

Crowley grumbles, groans, scrubs both hands over his face and under the sunglasses to rub at his eyes until spots decorate the back of his eyelids. Then he sighs and, against his better judgement, tells him. 

* * *

For an immortal being, it is always something of a surprise when the ever-flowing river of time changes the landmarks around. Aziraphale had been passively expecting the cottage he and Crowley had dropped Anathema and her bicycle off at nearly a decade ago, but she and Newt had outgrown the place sometime between moving in together and deciding to grow their little family. Instead of a cottage, the home Anathema has invited him into is a small yet definitely full-fledged house. 

After a certain amount of low-key wheedling and bribery with sweet refreshments, the intrepid witch had finally coaxed out the explanation she’d been waiting for since that day at the Tadfield Airbase, starting with _“Okay, so, ah, in the beginning, in the Garden, there was . . . . Well, he was a wily old serpent, and I was technically on apple tree duty . . .”_ and continuing through to the present problem. 

“And then,” Aziraphale continues, after wiping the cocoa-tinged whipped cream from his upper lip, “ _then_ he accused me of lying to _him_. When he was the one not being honest with me, can you imagine?” 

“Hmm,” Anathema says. She pushes a plate of cinnamon sugar-topped biscuits his way, but remains somewhat distracted by feeding Iris little spoonfuls of mashed peas. Only about half of this is ending up in the baby’s mouth while the rest is smeared artfully across the highchair tray, bib, and various tufts of fine black hair. 

“Just because I didn’t tell him _immediately_ when I worked out the Antichrist’s address. But I was still working with him, even when I was by no means allowed to, so how does _that_ suggest I didn’t trust him?”

Anathema shrugs and tries switching to pureed carrot. “Well, you were working him at great personal risk, sure, but if you weren’t telling him everything then you sort of had one foot out the door just in case,” she points out. “You left room for plausible deniability.”

“That’s what we’d always done,” Aziraphale protests with the kind of pout that always seems to work on Crowley. He’s sheepishly disappointed when it doesn’t seem to have any effect on this human. 

“Yes, but you hadn’t always been facing down the Apocalypse, had you?” She holds up a hand to forestall the angel’s next interjection. “All I’m saying is, yes you were just following precedent, because it _was_ a tricky situation. But I can also see how he’d be a little hurt by it, if he was telling you everything he knew. Even if it didn’t happen to be very much. You can understand, maybe even agree with what another person is doing, and still be hurt by it.”

Aziraphale slumps a bit, then rallies and takes a biscuit. “But the fact that he turned down an offer to be Forgiven,” he says, feeling on much firmer ground now. “He could have been an angel again. How could he not take it? Second chances don’t grow on trees, you know, and it would have solved everything!”

Anathema hums again. “For you.”

“I . . . beg your pardon?”

She gives him a look which is not unkind, but which doesn’t seem to speak highly of his comprehension skills. “He’s been a demon for what, six thousand years? It would be pretty hard to fit back into a more restrictive mold after all that time. He’s developed all these habits and personal preferences, and that’s a part of who he is that would need to be cut back out again, cold turkey. That’d be a pretty huge adjustment . . . and from some of the things you’ve said, Heaven seems to be a pass-or-fail sort of place.”

Aziraphale decides to occupy his mouth with the biscuit while he works out how to respond. As an angel he’s meant to be empathetic towards all living things, although, admittedly, seeing things from the other side has never been much encouraged where The Other Side was concerned. He tries to comfort himself with the knowledge that humans, with their ineffable blend of good, evil, and free will, are naturally better with this unusual sort of quandary. 

The biscuit is softer than he expected, with the slight crunch of sugar and ground cinnamon on top. “This is quite good,” he murmurs after swallowing. 

“Thanks. They’re called snickerdoodles.” Meanwhile, Iris seems more amenable to eating the carrots than the peas. Anathema ventures an experiment with strained beets. “All I’m saying is, it’s a really huge, personal decision,” she says, only slightly distracted by the multitasking. “Like when Agnes’ sequel turned up, and I decided to burn it.”

Aziraphale blinks. “You . . . what?”

“It was a choice between being a professional descendant for the rest of my life, with every step of the way mapped out for me and constantly working to decode it so I could follow Agnes’ visions of the future as closely as possible . . . or making my choices and mistakes for myself, giving myself the freedom to do that. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made, but I think Agnes would have understood. Sometimes I even think she probably knew and approved.” Anathema smiles. “It’s fitting, you know? Like, she died from being burned at the stake, and that was horrible, but this was more like . . . an act of emancipation, you could call it.”

“You _what_?” Aziraphale gasps. 

“Yeah, it was like I was finally free to stop worrying about the Future, capital F, and start thinking about _my_ future. I felt a lot more centered afterwards.” Anathema pauses and casts him a questioning look. “Hey, are you okay? You look kind of pale. . . .”

* * *

The milkshake—Crowley has ended up with the one with bourbon in it—has gone surprisingly fast. He decides that he’s consumed worse, and though he might prefer an affogato, the alcohol is welcome enough.

Perhaps that’s why he’s on his third, while Adam is still nursing his first. 

“It’s not like I _want_ him to have to worry about all that Falling stuff constantly,” Crowley is saying. “I mean, I don’t _want_ him to Fall. It would be . . . weird.” He screws up his face in a brief attempt to try and put a mental finger on exactly why it would be weird. “I don’t want him to change for me. You’re not supposed to have to for, er, relationships, I’ve heard, and he’s perfect just the way he is. It’s just, I’m not _that_ bad, right? You don’t get a Divine Audience for being _that_ bad. I don’t think I’d drag him down all _that_ much.”

“I still can’t believe you told God to fuck off,” Adam sniggers into his unholy concoction of creamy coconut, malted caramel, and booze. “You know She’s kind of like my gran, right?”

“She got a fraction of the earful She deserves,” Crowley grumbles, then rests his chin exasperatedly in one hand and returns to his previous train of thought. “She said ‘the forbidden fruit metaphor I gave you’ was by my side this whole time. That's what I never got about the _actual_ forbidden fruit. Why put it right there if they weren’t supposed to take a bite? What was so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil? Never made sense. That’s the first thing Aziraphale and I ever talked about, practically. I said to him, I said, wouldn’t it be funny if I did the good thing and he did the bad? Then I had to walk it back, of course. Made him uncomfortable. Ambiguity’ll do that, to an angel. Most demons, too, come to think of it. Dunno why it’s never bothered me as much.” 

Except when it came to being called nice, he doesn’t add—because he still has _some_ pride left, thank you very much. But that was just a matter of what might happen if Hell got wind of that maybe-sort-of-possibly being true. Which . . . is honestly why he can understand all of Aziraphale’s hesitations prior to the Apocalypse whenever it had come to whether or not they were friends. As far as Crowley is concerned, Heaven is a bit like one big dysfunctional family. He'd been a part of that family himself, once, and he remembers how things operate up there and what happens if you got caught putting a toe out of line.

Of course, that had been before the Apocalypse had failed to happen, and Heaven and Hell had failed to execute the two of them. Things are different now. But Aziraphale is still clinging to all the old baggage, convinced his life still depends on it because he's never known anything else, and now instead of whether or not they’re friends it’s whether or not they can be intimate. 

“Maybe you were right, though,” Adam is saying. “Maybe you did do the good thing.” When Crowley tunes back in enough to scoff, Adam keeps going. “No, really. ‘Cause you’re not that bad after all. Makes sense to me. But I don’t know if giving them the sword was a bad thing . . . seems like it was just, y’know, a thing. Maybe it’s all part of what had to happen for everything to turn out right.” 

“Nnnyah,” Crowley says noncommittally, frowning. He drinks more of his milkshake and chews on his rapidly fraying paper straw. 

“I mean it. Y’know what an axiom is, right?”

The demon grimaces. “If you try to turn this into a pop quiz, I will _actually_ run you over next time.”

Adam ignores the threat. “It’s a statement or proposition which is regarded as established, accepted, or self-evidently true. Like, supply equals demand, or for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. I reckon that you and him have been looking at it like that—he’s good and you’re bad, he’s pure white and you’re tarnished black, Heaven’s right and Hell is wrong.”

“Except for that last one,” Crowley concedes. 

“Right. But I also reckon, whenever either of you try to look at it any differently, it’s still the same thing only flipped around. You’re not so bad, he’s not all that good. Hell is right, Heaven is wrong. Except you _know_ it’s not like that, because both sides need their heads knocked together, pretty much.”

“No argument there. . . .”

“Well, good.” Adam grins, quite pleased with his reasoning so far. “And that’s why you’re both stupid.”

Crowley coughs on a swallow of milkshake. “Hey!”

“Well, you are. If Heaven and Hell are both wrong, that throws off the whole axiom! Seems to me, you’re both pretty much the same.”

“We’re bloody polar opposites, you . . . daft human! Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said?!”

The look Adam gives him is far too smug for Crowley’s comfort. “Yeah, I have. I’ve been listening to what you haven’t been saying, too. What’s the one thing humans have that angels and demons don’t?”

“Free will, obviously,” Crowley snaps, looking around for the waiter to flag down for the bill. He’s had just about enough of being lectured by this little twerp. 

“What’s a person need in order to choose to go against the grain and stand up against Heaven and Hell because they both need their heads knocked together?”

“Fr—” Crowley’s mouth starts while he’s not paying attention. Then the rest of him catches up and abruptly goes quite blank and still. 

* * *

It takes a bit of deep breathing and a few more biscuits and sips of cocoa for Aziraphale to regain his composure, but he still feels quite shaken. The very thought of burning _any_ book, let alone one so rare and containing genuinely accurate prophecies, is enough to make him break out in a cold sweat. 

But. . . . 

“I suppose I can understand,” Aziraphale says slowly. “You are human, after all. Humans aren’t really meant to be so firmly beholden to the past or the future. It would make perfect sense, from that perspective, to—” he represses a wince, barely “—remove the temptation.” _Although I would gladly have taken it off your hands,_ he doesn’t have the heart to add. What’s gone is gone. 

“Thanks,” Anathema replies dryly. 

“Well I’m sorry, my dear girl, but I’m just not _comfortable_ with the idea of destroying something so priceless,” he huffs. “I wasn’t trying to imply that it wasn’t perhaps the right decision, given the circumstances.”

“Mm-hmm. But you get what I’m saying, don’t you? About how Crowley had a similar choice to make, and made a similar kind of decision?”

Now Aziraphale does wince. “It’s not a temptation if it’s offered by God, it’s a blessing!”

Anathema rolls her eyes and starts bustling around the kitchen, starting to clean up after the impressive mess Iris has managed to make of the high chair tray. All the colorful puréed foods are smeared across the white plastic surface in several messy but vaguely uniform arches. The effect, despite the rather limited color palette, is almost that of a rainbow. 

“Sounds like different sides of the same coin to me—it’s all in how you look at it. Now, it’s been a lovely visit, but Newt gets back from visiting his mum in forty-five minutes or so and then I have to go back to work. Would you like another cup of cocoa? Or possibly to help out by cleaning the kitchen or changing a diaper?”

“Oh, ah. . . .” Aziraphale hastily glances down at his half forgotten cup of cocoa. To his chagrin, it’s gone a bit tepid. “I would be happy to help, but much better suited to cleaning up in the kitchen, I’m afraid.” 

“Thanks,” Anathema says, flashing him a smile as she lifts little Iris out of the highchair. 

A moment later he’s alone in the kitchen. With a wave of his hand, the mess of baby food disappears and his cocoa is warm again. Aziraphale drains the last of it and polishes off another biscuit—snickerdoodles, he believes he heard Anathema call them earlier, no doubt an American recipe that he should look into at a later date when he isn’t feeling quite so unsettled. 

All he’d wanted was a quiet walk in the country. He’s not sure what he thinks of what’s happened instead. Many of the ideas Anathema has put forth rub quite the wrong way on his angelic and bibliophilic sensibilities, and yet he can’t bring himself to dismiss them outright without due consideration, because . . . 

Because he can’t imagine never speaking to Crowley ever again, in spite of what he might have previously threatened in times of great strain and tension. He _wants_ to be able to answer the phone when his demon calls. He _wants_ more of what had been happening on the sofa in his cozy bookshop, the familiar sights and scents of home and books and Crowley, Crowley kissing him, Crowley’s body pressed to his, before everything had collapsed in on itself like a dying star. 

There has to be a way to reconcile everything, there just . . . has to.

* * *

Into the sudden quiet that’s descended over the diner booth Adam says, not unkindly, “Going against the grain and deciding to be with someone takes free will too, but you want to do that. And it sounds like he does too, even if he is scared.”

“That’s . . . really not possible though,” Crowley protests. There’s a trickle of doubt worming its way in though—and that’s very disconcerting because, generally speaking, _he_ is the one who’s supposed to plant that kind of seed. “Everyone knows humans are the only ones who have free will, that’s the whole _point_. They’re only good or bad because they want to be, but people like us are set in our ways right from the start.”

A second after the words leave his forked tongue, it occurs to him that Aziraphale had said something similar (or practically verbatim, really) somewhere around 1020, when they’d first reached their little Arrangement.

“Anything’s possible,” Adam counters. “You don’t know what’s impossible because you don’t know the Ineffable Plan.”

Crowley groans, picking up the metal cup of extra milkshake to finish off, ice cream headache be damned. “Who the hell taught you that word?”

“You two did,” comes the smug reply of a young man who knows he has the high ground in the argument, even if it’s technically because playing the _ineffability_ card is the trump that trumps all trumps. “Anyway, I’m just sayin’ it’s worth thinking about, ‘cause it doesn’t seem like anyone else has much and that might be important. You gotta think about stuff like this because you’re in a unique situation that leads to thinking about this kinda stuff. It’s not like there are any other demons goin’ around falling in love with angels, right? So, as the first, it’s your responsibility, because maybe that’s the whole point.” 

“Hgnn,” Crowley grunts into his milkshake. If he and Aziraphale are ever back on speaking terms again, he thinks with a hopelessly maudlin pang, maybe he’ll bring the angel here. For the novelty. 

“Or, y’know,” Adam continues blithely, “She could just be really into the idea of you guys hooking up and that’s the whole mysterious, ineffable endgame.” 

Crowley chokes on an inadvisably large, chilly gulp, but even he has to admit that at least it’s a distraction from wallowing in self-pity. 

* * *

Once, Aziraphale recalls as he stares unseeingly out the window on the bus ride back to London, Crowley had made a comment about forgiveness. He remembers the conversation perfectly, of course, but there were so many memories rolling around in his head after six thousand years that it hadn’t trundled into the forefront until just now. 

It had started in a wine bar—the very wine bar they’d later had their first date in, as a matter of fact. The menu then had been a bit hodgepodge, rations during the Blitz being what they were, but passable, and anyway, the real attraction of the place had been the drinks. It was where Crowley had driven him after the church bombing. To settle the nerves with a good nightcap. 

Aziraphale, having held the door open for the being who’d just saved his life, as was polite, bore witness to Crowley’s attempt to limp favoring both feet at the same time. Not that he commented on it, unsure if the demon would prickle at having attention drawn to his discomfort and _definitely_ not wanting to do anything untoward, not now. He tried to put the light giddiness still fizzing through his corporation down to the close call and not, to name an example completely at random, because his hereditary enemy had shown up in the nick of time to rescue both him. Again. At moderate to great personal risk, depending on if anyone had been Observing. 

However, once they had their drinks (which became miraculously better quality at some point shortly after the waiter left their table), Aziraphale did risk a gentle prod. 

“How are your feet, my dear?” he asked. “I do hope the consecrated ground didn’t do much lasting damage.”

“‘S fine,” Crowley grunted. He had removed neither sunglasses nor hat upon entering the premises, as was befittingly impolite for a demon. 

“Still,” Aziraphale permitted himself to fret, “I wish there was something I could do.”

Crowley shrugged. “Comes with the territory. Can’t be a demon without a little bit of tap dancing, I always say.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Not once have I heard you say that.”

“Whatever. I’m just saying, it’s part of the deal. Is it irritating? Yeah, sometimes. But it’s a damned sight better than making nice and being goody-goody all the time, even if that would be easier on the sole.”

The joke made Aziraphale chuckle into his wine glass, although he felt bad for laughing a moment later. “. . . .That isn’t funny, Crowley. And you know,” he added, spotting a good opening without stopping to wonder whether taking it was strictly speaking a good _idea_ , “if you wished to repent, I’m sure that God in Her infinite wisdom and grace would—”

“Would She now,” Crowley interrupted, lip curling into a derisive sneer to show how he felt about _that_. “You know, I almost wish She would try it. Give me a chance to give her a piece of my mind about all this Nazi business.” He leaned forward, fixing Aziraphale with a tinted but still quite sharp look. “Do you know what in Heaven’s name this stupid war is supposed to accomplish?”

“I . . . I don’t think it’s supposed to _accomplish_ anything. . . .”

“Ha, you’re damn right.” Crowley sat back, apparently satisfied by the paltry response. “Not a point to be found in the whole mess, except maybe that eugenics is a really bloody bad, dangerous idea. Even if She showed up to apologize for it, what good would that do? It’d still have happened.”

“Well, yes, but. . . .”

“So if She showed up and offered me _forgiveness_ ,” Crowley barreled on with a sneer, “how could I take it? What would be the point? The damage has already been done, and there’s certain things about being a demon that can’t be changed just by a few pretty words and, ugh, _switching sides._ ” The way he said it, he might have been talking about _being burned at the stake_. “You can’t uneat the apple in any way that’ll make it an uneaten apple again. Once the word of God is spoken there’s no way to really take it back.”

Aziraphale sighed. He’d obviously made a wrong turn in the conversation despite his good intentions. Or probably because of them. Maybe that was for the best, that they reinforced their differences now over drinks rather than letting the evening end sweetly with a fortuitous rescue and a simple lift back home. 

They stayed in the wine bar quite late. They were far from the only patrons; plenty of other Londoners, shaken awake by the air raid sirens, were still too wired on adrenaline to go back to sleep even though the all clear had been sounded. Now that it was safe, humans wanted the comfort of being able to move about freely rather than being crammed into a bomb shelter with their neighbors, so naturally they crammed themselves into smokey little establishments such as this instead, where they could at least drink and smoke and appreciate being alive. 

The establishment’s employees certainly seemed to have no objection to the company, and last call had been conveniently skipped over for the evening. 

“Demons,” Crowley was saying, “look at creation from a different perspective than you angels. If you ignore the black and white dichotomy of good and evil . . . it’s just two different angles, neither side seeing the whole. So is being a demon really even that bad?”

“Must be,” Aziraphale said. “It’s a punishment. You’ve lost the Grace of God.”

“Yeah, but . . . but did She take it away, or did I lose it?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Big difference. _Big_.” Crowley held his hands up wide, presumably to indicate a sizeable amount of bigness. “If it was taken for some Ineffable reason—”

“Evil deeds,” Aziraphale suggested.

“— _shut up_ , then bollocks to Her, I barely did anything. I wasn’t hurting anyone, just asking about some stuff. I was only curious. But, if I just sort of. Y’know. Misplaced it.” Crowley shrugged and took another drink of his wine. “Then it’s not a punishment, it’s just something that happened. Nothing to do with evil at all. It unravels the whole di . . . dicey . . . the whole thing. And then what are we left with?”

Aziraphale considered that, through the haze of more alcohol than the wine bar technically had on premises, times being what they were. He thought, for a moment, that there was a glimmer of sense somewhere in all that . . . then decided that it was just the fools gold shine of drink, and filed it away as probably not worth dwelling on. 

So all he said, with a heavy sigh, was, “You ask too many questions, Crowley.”

Almost a century later, on a bus to London, Aziraphale mulls the conversation over again and wonders if the problem really is that Crowley asks too many questions, or if it’s that he, Aziraphale, doesn’t ask enough. 

It’s a dangerous thought, but he dares to let himself have it. 

And when nothing bad happens, he continues to ponder on it all the long ride home. 

* * *

“Alright, get out,” Crowley tells Adam as he pulls up in front of the student housing building he’s been directed to. “And no more playing in traffic. Not everyone has my demonic reflexes for slamming on the brakes, you know.”

“Thanks, Godfather Crowley,” Adam replies, a laugh dancing in his eyes. “‘You take care.” He opens the car door but pauses on the way out, glancing back over his shoulder and looking for a moment exactly like the world-weary yet somehow still optimistic eleven-year-old that had stopped the Apocalypse just under a decade ago. 

As trite as is, Crowley can really see himself in the kid sometimes. He hates that. 

“Just try talking to him, okay? The two of you, you fit together. It’s important. I’m not sure why, but I can tell that it’s definitely important.”

Crowley rolls his eyes, then catches the reproachful look and groans. “Fine, yeah, okay, I’ll try.”

Adam grins at the small victory. “Cool. And hey, I’ll tell Warlock I saw you at our study date tonight. Bye!”

Crowley’s mouth falls open, then snaps shut along with the slam of the car door. Well. Apparently Adam has met at least _one_ American. 

In the silence that follows, the Bentley’s radio clicks on and the sentimental opening strains of _No-One But You_ start to play quietly through the speakers. 

“ _A hand above the water, an angel reaching for the sky_ ,” croons Freddie Mercury. “ _Is it raining in heaven, do you want us to cry?_ ”

“Oh sure, side with the Antichrist why don’t you,” Crowley mutters, pulling away from the curb. “It’s just because he put you back together after that whole M-25 mess. . . .” He glances up at the building briefly as he does so. Crowley knows that student housing generally doesn’t allow pets. Still, he catches a red glint of hellhound eyes in one of the windows. 

The radio volume inches up slightly. There’s no getting away from surround sound.

“ _No one could reach them, no one but you. . . .”_

“All right, all _right_ , I’ll call him when I get back to the flat! Happy now?”

The sound system switches over to the CD player, which starts part way through _The Hero_. 

“ _Well I tell you my friend, this might seem like the end, but the continuation is yours for the making_ ,” go the lyrics. “ _Yes you're a hero! Ooh yeah_. . . .”

Crowley feels the corners of his mouth start to twitch and schools them into a mask of indifference because it’s a hell of a lot better than expressing emotions right now. Start with amusement and everything else might float to the surface too—hurt, anxiety, fear that there’s nothing he can do to mend the shattered pieces. He’ll try calling Aziraphale, but God only knows if Aziraphale will take his call. 

“Oh, stop being dramatic,” he says out loud, because he also has an image to maintain, and speeds off towards home. 

* * *

1They’ve never been greener, and many have even been persuaded to bloom in a desperate attempt to appease him, despite either being wildly out of season or not the sort of plant that normally flowers, ever. Return to text

2The frequency of first 8-tracks, then cassettes, then CDs gradually turning into Best of Queen in Crowley’s car might be attributed to the fact that he _always_ forgets to take them out. He just keeps putting new things in the slot, and has in fact never noticed that in his enthusiasm to keep up with the technology he has consistently neglected to outfit the Bentley with an “eject” button. Return to text

3At least, not right away. Return to text

4So basically a regular teenager, but with confidence. Return to text

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> . . . Adam's philosophy professor goes by the legal name Joshua C. Inri. I will neither accept criticism on this nor elaborate.


	6. Listen To The Colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aziraphale says a brief and almost hysterical prayer for whatever ethereal brain cells the archangel Michael has had to devote to pondering his hypothetical sex life, and Crowley breaks the on-foot land-speed record then drops a tire iron on his own foot.

There is a large puddle on the London street by the Soho bus stop. Other passengers—as this was a bus that had actually been planning on going between Tadfield and London today—step out into it with varying murmurs of dismay. Aziraphale, naturally, steps onto and walks lightly across it without a second thought. Or a first thought, really. His thoughts are still focused on Crowley and wrestling with the demon’s stubborn refusal to forgive God. 

Funny. . . . A few thousand years ago it might not have even occurred to him that the Forgiveness needed to go in more than one direction, but he’d gotten used to Crowley’s demonic idiosyncrasies enough over the centuries that he could follow the logic, at least in the sense that he knew it was there. That doesn’t help him _understand_ , though, not really, and more and more he’s beginning to worry that he doesn’t have it in him. As much as he loves Crowley, as much as he wants . . .

Aziraphale isn’t precisely looking where he’s going. His feet carry him across the neighborhood’s new rainbow crosswalk and down the street to the bookshop; he doesn’t look up and notice the two visitors waiting at his front step until he’s nearly within speaking distance, and when he does his stride falters slightly. 

“Be not afraid,” Michael says in honeyed tones. “We come bearing good tidings.” She sounds as though she’s trying to address some silly human rather than a fellow angel, and Gabriel at least has the good grace to look mildly embarrassed. 

Aziraphale (who, unbeknownst to both of them, last saw Michael in Hell, blithely bringing Holy Water for Crowley’s would’ve-been execution) makes no effort whatsoever to hide a skeptical grimace. 

“Call it a personal visit,” Gabriel offers, in what is probably as close to a conciliatory tone as he can manage. “And for the record, I want you to know that your shop of books has been on the Earth Observation Department’s blackout list ever since the, ah, last time we saw you.”

“I see,” Aziraphale replies neutrally. He does some quick calculations, tallying up the number of instances where he and Crowley might still have been observed elsewhere, and wonders uneasily how this had never occurred to him before. The number could be higher, but isn’t particularly encouraging. “Well, in that case, would you prefer to not cross the threshold or can we discuss this inside?”

“Certainly,” Gabriel says, and they follow him in—not quickly, though, and Michael gives a disdainful sniff just inside the doorway. No point in trying to pass that off as Jeffrey Archer books this time. 

Whatever is going on, Aziraphale feels more comfortable facing it on his own ground. He sets immediately to bustling, taking off his coat and hat (already miraculously dry). “Would either of you like a cup of tea? Or cocoa, perhaps?” he asks absentmindedly, peering around stacks of books on the front counter in an effort to see if that’s where either of his extra mugs have gotten to. “Wonderfully fortifying on a cold, damp day like this one.”

“No thank you,” Gabriel replies. 

Michael clears her throat, and when this doesn’t halt Aziraphale’s rummaging—now just for his own mug and a teabag for one—does so again. “Aziraphale. We’ve come out of concern for your wellbeing.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, setting the mug on the counter with more force than strictly necessary. He considers, then with a twitch of his fingers fills it with hot water and drops the teabag in to steep. Before the attempted Apocalypse, and possibly before Michael, of _all_ people, started talking to him about his well being, he wouldn’t have dared such a brazenly frivolous miracle. 

But to hell with it, less than a decade ago they’d wanted to eliminate him. _They_ had cast _him_ . . . well, not down, obviously, but certainly aside. Surely he can’t be placed much lower in their esteem than that. Do they expect him to have forgotten?

Gabriel eyes the steaming mug, but makes a visible effort not to comment on it. Perhaps the intervening time has been enough to smooth over the ruffled feathers of not having a Great War after all. “Yes. . . . Aziraphale, we’ve gotten some unsettling reports about your recent dealings with the demon Crowley.”

There it is. Aziraphale gives a hollow smile. “And what might those dealings be, exactly?” He wants to hear them say it. _Read out the list of my sins, and then admit that I’ve Fallen for none of them._

It doesn’t matter anyway. Crowley likely doesn’t want anything to do with him now. In fact, Crowley is probably asleep again by now. Perhaps he’ll sleep through the rest of the century again—God only knows. 

Michael purses her lips. “You know full well, Principality Aziraphale. Suffice it to say that public affection towards a demon is completely unbefitting an angel, particularly one with your track record.” 

_Ah yes_ , Aziraphale thinks calmly, _my track record_. That would be a reference to his demotion after Eden, permanent assignment away from Heaven proper, recent Apocalypse-related adventures, and so on and so forth. 

“As well as,” she adds firmly, “your discussion earlier today with a human woman, which took place without _any_ authorization to reveal your heavenly origins.”

“I didn’t tell her anything, she remembered. She was in Tadfield when everything happened.” Aziraphale looks pointedly at Gabriel. “Remember?”

At that moment the phone chooses to ring, loud and shrill. Aziraphale doesn’t move, doesn’t shift his gaze, and the grating sound drills through the dusty silence of the shop—until finally Gabriel grows uncomfortable enough to step forward and lift the handset. He doesn’t appear at all sure of how to hold it, but at least gets the speaking end closer to his mouth than to his ear. 

“Thank you for telegraphing Aziraphale’s shop of pornographic books,” the archangel says stiffly. “May I be of any assistance?” There’s a short pause, and then he hangs up with a shrug. “Apparently not.”

Aziraphale bites the inside of his cheeks to avoid laughing. He can’t help it; it’s _funny_ how out of touch they can be sometimes, have more or less always been. 

“To answer your question,” Gabriel continues, “there were some humans there, yes, but that’s not the point. The point, Aziraphale, is the _content_ of the conversation.”

“About you and the demon,” Michael agrees firmly. “Your . . . relationship with him. It really is a good thing that you haven’t lowered yourself so far as to indulge in Original Sin; we seem to have caught you just in time.”

Internally, Aziraphale says a brief and almost hysterical prayer for whatever ethereal brain cells Michael has had to devote to pondering his hypothetical sex life. 

“The thing is, Aziraphale,” Gabriel says, sounding as though he just read a “helpful article” on how to conduct an intervention, “we feel that you might have been left without guidance for too long. Lost your way a bit. And while it’s . . . admirable that you’ve tried to be a good influence on this demon, the fact remains that he’s one of the damned and is beyond redemption.”

“It can’t end well,” Michael agrees primly. 

Gabriel gives an earnest nod, and now he does meet Aziraphale’s eyes. “That’s right. We only have your well-being in mind, Aziraphale, and that’s why we think it’s time you return with us to Heaven. Come home. He's not worth Falling over. . . . He’s literally beneath you.”

Aziraphale can’t hold it in anymore at the accidental innuendo. He chuckles. 

The chuckle turns into a full-fledged laugh, and before he knows what’s happening he’s leaning full on the counter, gasping with mirth while tears run down his face. 

Even as he doesn’t know why he finds it so irresistibly funny, at the moment it’s absolutely _fucking_ hilarious. By the time he finally manages to rein himself in again, his abdominal muscles ache. 

“Oh, ha,” he chuckles, and presses a hand briefly over his mouth. He tries not to look directly at Gabriel, who looks halfway between utter bafflement and some vague attempt at laughing along. “Oh my. I do beg your pardon, couldn’t be helped. You’re both so . . . so ignorant!”

Michael’s eyebrows snap together in disbelief. “What?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aziraphale giggles. “You have no idea how this world works. You barely even know me—this is the longest personal conversation I’ve ever had with either of you, and it’s hardly even that because you’re talking _at_ me rather than _with_ me. And you know absolutely nothing, nothing _whatsoever_ about Anthony J Crowley.”

He isn’t angry until about halfway through the last sentence, but by the last word he’s absolutely furious. Why in Heaven’s name not? They are . . . They are _judging a book by its cover_ , and he will not stand for it. Not in his own bookshop, on his own ground, where he suddenly feels more sure of himself than he has possibly ever been in the whole of his existence. 

Michael is glaring now. “You can’t—”

“I’ve heard what you have to say on the matter, please do me the same courtesy,” Aziraphale interrupts firmly. He stands to his full height, which, while not terribly impressive in present company, is still something. “Crowley has been one of the few constants over the past six thousand years, much more so than any of you lot. I’ve made a study of him as an adversary, as an acquaintance, as an ally, as a friend—and yes, as rather more than that too, as you’ve so indelicately pointed out, despite the fact that it is none of your business. As you made quite clear a few years ago, I can no longer consider Heaven ‘my side,’ nor do I choose or desire to align myself with Hell.”

“Some mistakes have been made,” Gabriel tries. “I’ve spoken to Uriel for reprimanding you on their last visit, that was . . . not a productive response to your actions. And perhaps you’re right, perhaps we don’t know you as well as we should after all this time. But we’re here now, Aziraphale. We don’t want you to Fall and we’re trying to help you.”

Aziraphale considers this for a moment. “Yes. . . . You are here, and that’s something,” he says slowly. “Thank you. But . . . I don’t believe I need your help.” Appreciated though it might be, Heaven’s acceptance isn't necessary to him any more than God’s is to Crowley. The gesture is too little now, and far too late. 

It clicks into place then, a kaleidoscope of colors shifting just so to fall into a recognizable pattern. He thinks about sitting in a kitchen in Tadfield, watching Anathema’s child smear streaks of colorful food into the shape of a rainbow; Iris even means rainbow in Greek. He thinks about the rainbow crosswalk on the street outside. He thinks back and remembers seeing a distant rainbow in the sky on the day Crowley had woken up, mere hours before their first kiss. 

The first rainbow had been a promise. Aziraphale and Crowley—Crawly, then—had witnessed it from the safety of Noah’s ark and made half-hearted attempts at pretending they had bothered to either bless or tempt at all during the flood. In truth, Crawly had slept through most of it and Aziraphale had only gone so far as to keep the animals calm and healthy. Aloud, they had congratulated each other on thwarting well done all around. There had been no plans or particular expectation of meeting again. And yet, the very air held the colors of promise, of tacit approval and encouragement to forge ahead anew. . . .

“God made Crowley to be as he is, as _all_ that he is. And personally,” Aziraphale continues, “I believe that Crowley is one of Her cleverest creations by far. He sees things in ways no one else does, and that’s beautiful. _He_ is beautiful. He’s the whole reason we stopped the Apocalypse, you know; Crowley saw that it wasn’t right before I could, as only a being who knows the feeling of being wronged so deeply could.” 

He remembers, _Not the kids. You can’t kill kids._ He remembers Sodom and Gomorrah, and a certain demon skulking in the shadows, undermining Divine Wrath by playing lookout as young refugees fled for their lives in the background. He remembers the look on Crowley’s face at Golgotha.

There had also been the demon’s absolutely feral self-flagellation for suggesting to Nero that the weather in Rome was strangely cold for the season and might be improved by a pleasantly roaring fire. And one long Sicilian evening in 1347 listening to Crowley drunkenly hemorrhaging the details of loading of diseased, flea-infested rats into a dozen ships, while clearly suffering the effects of indigestion from trying to choke down as many of them as possible during the voyage. And so much more over the centuries, each instance more apparent as Aziraphale had learned how to read all of Crowley’s tells. 

Despite the grim memories, Aziraphale notes Gabriel and Michael’s disbelieving looks and starts to smile, pitying them. He also knows what he needs to do next. “I’m dreadfully sorry that the two of you that you can’t see that. So,” he says, clapping both hands together in a business-like, let’s-get-thing-done sort of way that he hopes Gabriel appreciates, “thank you ever so much for making the trip down here, but I believe I’ve quite had my fill of guidance for now. Do drop me a line if anything new comes up. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call Crowley and tell him I love him, so if you don’t mind—”

A sudden thump from amidst the shelves behind him makes Aziraphale startle and turn to look, and there’s Crowley, slack-jawed and empty-handed, a dropped tire iron resting across his snakeskin boots. 

“You. You love me?” Crowley asks stupidly. As an afterthought, he also shifts his feet to get the tire iron off, adding, “Ow.”

* * *

On the whole, demons aren’t supposed to be trustworthy. They’re generally expected to break promises at the drop of a hat—preferably one that belongs to an innocent bystander. 

But Crowley keeps his promises, so as soon as he gets back inside his flat he leans haphazardly against the closed front door and thumbs his cell phone open. There’s exactly one contact programmed into it; he always taps in the number from memory anyway. The picture of Aziraphale that pops up as the call tries to connect is a bit blurry because he’d taken it covertly one night just as a waiter had set the angel’s dessert down in front of him, capturing the delighted spark in his eyes and the way his lips had just begun to part to praise the artistry of whichever pastry chef had been responsible. 

He’s so surprised when the call is picked up that he’s rendered speechless at first. But the voice that thunders down the connection and viciously assaults his unexpecting ears isn’t Aziraphale’s. 

“Thank you for telegraphing Aziraphale’s shop of pornographic books,” drones the archangel _fucking Gabriel,_ of all people, and Crowley’s hackles go up so hard that scales bloom in small patches all the way along his spine. He doesn’t even bother to disconnect the call, just hurls the phone as hard as he can into the next room, turns, and runs back out the door, forgetting his coat despite the light drizzle that’s sprung up. 

This is worse than the time he’d tracked Aziraphale down in the Bastille. Worse than the time he’d loitered outside that church during the Blitz, working up the nerve to dance his way in there. Worse than . . . well, just as bad as the time he’d watched Aziraphale-in-his-body bludgeoned unconscious in the distance by Hastur and them, whilst being dragged away bound and gagged by archangels. Helpless. 

At least one of those bastard archangels is in the bookshop now, and Gabriel generally doesn’t travel solo. Crowley is so shot-through with panic that he bolts right past the Bentley with barely a glance, snapping his fingers to summon the tire iron as his everything-is-fucked weapon of choice. If he could be sure of who was where he would just snap himself into the bookshop too, but he isn’t _stupid_ —the last time he’d been caught off guard in the shop by a jet of water to the chest, at least it hadn’t been Holy. There’s no guarantee of that now, so he settles for running as fast as he can.[1]

Crowley reaches the back door of the shop breathing hard and grips the doorknob, hissing at it threateningly before opting to stop breathing altogether for stealth purposes. The hinges _won’t creak if they know what’s bloody good for them_. 

He creeps inside, vibrating with the anxious need to act, rip, tear, _protect,_ and is relieved to hear calm, level voices. That’s good. If they’re just talking, that means nothing has escalated to force yet, which is good. He slinks amidst the crowded shelves to find a good vantage point. 

“We only have your well-being in mind, Aziraphale,” Gabriel is saying, prompting a silent _yeah right_ snarl on Crowley’s part, “and that’s why we think it’s time you return with us to Heaven. Come home. He's not worth Falling over. . . . He’s literally beneath you.”

 _I wish_ , part of Crowley thinks, even though it’s really not the time. He wonders, even though it’s _still_ really not the time, if Gabriel knows how well he’s just set himself up for a “that’s what she said” joke. Probably not. 

But Aziraphale must have had some sort of similar thought, because he bursts out laughing. Out of reflex, Crowley grins in solidarity, though it probably looks more like baring his teeth. 

“Oh, ha,” Aziraphale manages after a few moments, and Crowley can practically hear him pressing a hand over his mouth to prevent further giggles from escaping. “Oh my. I do beg your pardon, couldn’t be helped. You’re both so . . . so ignorant!”

“What?” snaps Michael’s voice. Ah, so that’s who Gabriel has brought with him. Good, Sandalphon is more the type to smite first and ask questions later. . . . 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aziraphale tells them, and Crowley’s heart swells with pride. “You have no idea how this world works. You barely even know me—this is the longest personal conversation I’ve ever had with either of you, and it’s hardly even that because you’re talking _at_ me rather than _with_ me. And you know absolutely nothing, nothing _whatsoever_ about Anthony J Crowley.”

At the mention of his full chosen name, Crowley feels as though his heart has just about burst. Aziraphale is _defending him_? To _Gabriel and Michael?_ Vibrating for more than just one reason now, he reaches a vantage point where he can peer through the gap over the top of some books and see where the three of them are standing. Seeing his angel after such a long time—well, relatively short, but it _feels_ a lot longer for how sharply he’s missed him—makes Crowley bite his lip, especially when Aziraphale interrupts Michael and stands to his full height. Watching normally subdued and deferential Aziraphale take control of a situation has always been a bit of a turn-on. 

“Crowley has been one of the few constants over the past six thousand years,” Aziraphale continues, “much more so than any of you lot. I’ve made a study of him as an adversary, as an acquaintance, as an ally, as a friend—and yes, as rather more than that too, as you’ve so indelicately pointed out, despite the fact that it is none of your business. As you made quite clear a few years ago, I can no longer consider Heaven ‘my side,’ nor do I choose or desire to align myself with Hell.”

“Some mistakes have been made,” Gabriel tries. “I’ve spoken to Uriel for reprimanding you on their last visit, that was . . . not a productive response to your actions—”

 _Ah,_ Crowley thinks, recalling their first date when Aziraphale had sidestepped mentioning just who had assaulted him (and called Crowley his boyfriend) in the chaos leading up to the near Apocalypse, _so that’s who I need to tear limb from limb at some point. Duly noted._

“—and perhaps you’re right, perhaps we don’t know you as well as we should after all this time. But we’re here now, Aziraphale. We don’t want you to Fall and we’re trying to help you.”

Aziraphale is silent for a moment, considering. If Crowley needed to breathe, he would be holding his breath right now, desperate as he is to hear what choice is about to be made. He doubts that the archangels have been as direct as God had been about this being a one time offer, but there’s a _finality_ to this. 

“Yes. . . . You are here, and that’s something,” Aziraphale says slowly, drawing it out Satan bless him. “Thank you. But . . .”

 _Spit it out_ , Crowley mouths, twisting his grip on the mostly forgotten tire iron in his hands. 

“. . . I don’t believe I need your help. God made Crowley to be as he is, as _all_ that he is. And personally, I believe that Crowley is one of Her cleverest creations by far. He sees things in ways no one else does, and that’s beautiful. _He_ is beautiful,” Aziraphale continues thoughtfully. “He’s the whole reason we saved the world, you know; he saw that it wasn’t right before I could, as only a being who knows the feeling of being wronged so deeply could. He’s the whole reason we stopped the Apocalypse, you know; Crowley saw that it wasn’t right before I could, as only a being who knows the feeling of being wronged so deeply could.” 

Crowley wonders if at some point on his run here he’d actually tripped and knocked himself unconscious, and this is just a dream about Aziraphale saying impossibly nice things about him. He can feel himself blushing; his ears are already burning red. 

“I’m dreadfully sorry for the two of you that you can’t see that. So,” he says, clapping both hands together in a business-like, let’s-get-thing-done sort of way that he hopes Gabriel appreciates, “thank you ever so much for making the trip down here, but I believe I’ve quite had my fill of guidance for now. Do drop me a line if anything new comes up. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call Crowley and tell him I love him, so if you don’t mind—”

A sudden thump makes Aziraphale startle and turn to look, and Crowley, slack-jawed and empty-handed, realizes he’s dropped the tire iron on his foot. They’ve all spotted him; there goes the element of surprise. He’s finding it difficult to focus on that enough to care, just now. 

“You.” Oh Someone, they’re all looking at him. “You love me?” he asks stupidly. As an afterthought, he also kicks the tire iron away and steps more fully into view, adding, “Ow.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale says, having the absolute gall to sound surprised. “Didn’t you know?”

“Well, you never sssaid, exactly,” mumbles Crowley, flustered into losing his hold over his sibilants. And there was the matter of having a big fight recently, but . . . suddenly that seems inconsequential next to the fact of all Aziraphale just declared to such a holier than thou audience. No way to back out of it later, no room for doubt, just _You love me?_ and _Of course._ “Uh. And I love you too, obviousssly.”

Michael choses this as her moment to finally get a word in edgewise. “Be gone, demon. This has nothing to do with you.”

Crowley’s attention snaps back to the other angels in the room and he gives them a feral grin. Aziraphale loves him; he couldn’t care less what these two twats think. “Really?” he says sarcastically, sauntering forward and slinging an arm around _his_ angel’s waist. Aziraphale presses subtly, warmly into his side. “I guess I was thrown off by the several mentions of my name.” 

“Perhaps we should go,” Gabriel says. When Michael shoots him a disbelieving look, he shrugs. “We came to offer Aziraphale help and guidance; he declined. What do you want to do, drag him to Heaven against his will? Because that’s not my department.”

Michael stamps her foot in frustration. “The Great Plan has been disrupted, the troops have no war to fight, and you want to cede an Unfallen angel to this, this _broken note_?” 

Three things happen at that. Gabriel’s eyebrows shoot up; Crowley produces an only partially-swallowed sound somewhere between _ow that hurts_ and _are you fucking kidding me_ ; and Aziraphale leans abruptly forward and slams both his hands against the countertop with a thunderous bang. 

“ **You will not talk about him that way** ,” he commands, and there’s an edge to his voice that makes even two of the most powerful angels in Heaven take a step back—the silent echo behind the words that’s left a taste of divinity in the air. It was a tone that brooked no argument, and might as well have started with Thou Shalt Not and been carved on a stone tablet. Michael went pale and finally seemed at a loss for words.

It seems to startle Aziraphale as well, and he looks around to Crowley with such a beseeching _what do I do now_ look. 

_I love you,_ sings Crowley’s hopelessly sentimental and helplessly off-key heart. He’s been smitten since they day they met, really. All he had wanted was some sign of his love returned just as deeply, just as brazenly, just as unquenchable and irrepressible, and he’s heard enough today to soundly to tick all those boxes. 

Besides, one bat of those cloud-pale eyelashes is all the encouragement he’s ever needed to step in and play the knight in blackened armor. He takes Aziraphale’s hand, tangling their fingers together— _this is what we do next._

“Well,” the demon says, taking off his rain spattered sunglasses theatrically in the silence ringing through the bookshop, “that’s my cue. Feel free to let the door hit you on the way out,” he adds for Michael and Gabriel’s benefit, then pulls Aziraphale into a passionate embrace and kisses him right there against the dusty, seldom-used till. 

As makeup kisses go, he has no frame of reference, but _Satan_ he’s missed the feel of Aziraphale’s lips against his, opening for him, returning everything he’s giving and then some. A mere second later two perfectly manicured hands are sliding into his hair, tugging just gently enough to send goosebump prickles from his scalp and all the way down his serpentine spine, smoothing his bared scales back to soft human skin. Was that on purpose? Crowley doesn’t care, will put off wondering if Aziraphale noticed how he’d forgotten himself until later. He’s still reveling in how much he’s missed this when one of Aziraphale’s hands glides down to the small of his back and urges him to stand closer, and there’s definite . . . _pressing_. 

Between the surprise, the complete lack of hesitation in Aziraphale’s movements, and the delicious pressure, Crowley can’t help but moan out loud. Their legs slot together and Aziraphale’s hips give a shocking wiggle, urging Crowley to a wider stance and prompting another, much louder moan. 

The bell above the door jangles, marking the point where it’s finally become too much for their little audience.

“Mm,” Aziraphale hums and presses their foreheads together, parting their mouths just enough to breathe even though they don’t technically need to. For a fraction of an instant Crowley is terrified again—which is stupid, everything considered, including the way his angel is clutching at him, as though worried that too loose a grip and he’ll slip away to disappear again. “Crowley, I love you,” the angel says in a rush. 

Crowley can feel Aziraphale’s breath puffing against his over-sensitive lips, and it’s very distracting. “Didn’t we, uh. Weren’t we just talking about that?” he asks stupidly. “The whole ‘you love me?’ and ‘of course’ thing?”

“Yes, but I wanted to say it more directly. Properly. And also, my dear, I’m so sorry.” 

“I shouldn’t have lied to you during Armageddon, and I should _never_ have said . . . I didn’t realize until they started talking about you that way, and I couldn’t _stand_ it, but then—it wasn’t much different from some of the things _I’ve_ said, when you get right down to it, and I, I’m _so sorry_ my dear. Can you ever forgive me?”

“Ngk,” Crowley croaks. Aziraphale’s hands are even more distracting than his breath and nearly as miraculous as his words, which are so perfectly everything he’s ever wanted or needed to hear that it feels as though his insides might supernova. “Y-yesss, angel, of course, anything. . . .”

“What I mean is, I _do_ trust you, and I swear never to make you feel as though I don’t ever again. Or if I slip up and don’t catch myself you have to _tell_ me so I can make it up to you, because nothing is worth. . . .” He stops, blinks hard several times, then starts again. “Whether you’re Forgiven or not, I still love you. Whether you want Forgiveness or not, I’ll still want you. I can’t imagine ever stopping and I don’t ever intend to.” 

As a demon, Crowley can’t sense love—or at least, he isn’t supposed to. Yet he can feel it coming off Aziraphale in waves. He wants to close his eyes against the intensity of it, but at the same time doesn’t want to miss a millisecond in case, if he blinks, it might turn out to have gone. “Why?” he whispers. 

Because he believes Aziraphale, he really does, but he needs to hear it. 

Aziraphale smiles, seeming to understand. “While they all run around doing callous, uncaring things and telling themselves that angels are incapable of doing wrong, whenever I've known you to do genuine evil it’s because you couldn’t find a subtle way to soften it somehow, and you feel every inch of every vile and destructive deed you couldn’t wriggle out of. I thought I had standards—I can bend them, if I have to, when the ends justify the means. You don’t, and you don’t make excuses.”

His grip shifts, and while Crowley whines in his throat at the loss of fingers in his hair and against the small of his back, he gasps when Aziraphale’s hands settle squarely on his hips and begin to _kneed_. 

“Yours is the most steadfast moral compass I have ever known in my entire life, and none of them would even care to _try_ to hold a candle to that.” Aziraphale kisses him again, almost desperately. “I’m so glad you came today.”

“Had to,” Crowley manages. “Called. Gabriel picked up. Thought you . . . might need me.”

“I do,” Aziraphale assures him. “Please believe me—I’m more afraid of losing you than anything else. These past few . . . Oh, to be honest I haven’t even been able to keep track of how long, I’m simply lost without you. That’s why I was so upset about your going to sleep this last time, I was so dreadfully lonely the entire time—but I’m not angry, I’m just telling you, because it’s important. It always was, but I didn’t have the nerve, not until they started talking about my wellbeing and saying awful things about you in practically the same breath, and I realized. . . . I realized I would trade Heaven for you, Crowley. I don’t need them to be what I am, but I _do_ need _you_.” 

It occurs to Crowley, in the haze of trying to take all this in, that Aziraphale is babbling now. And crying a little, with a wavery smile. And looking so earnest and worried that he’s saying all of these things too late that damned if it doesn’t feel as though God has gone back on Her word and Forgiven him after all, the painful knots in his chest undone and his heart the first to Rise. And oh, look at that, he’s crying too. 

Because _I would trade Heaven for you_ is not the sort of thing an angel says lightly, and Aziraphale least of all. Aziraphale, who knows the value and importance of words better than most of the demons in the entire Infernal Contracts department, courtesy of thousands of years of watching humans squabble over punctuation and translations of religious texts to such an extent that he’s collected many of the western world’s most exquisite misprints. 

“Wow,” Crowley sniffles, to his giddy embarrassment, and quickly wipes at his face. “Ha. . . . First you tell off Michael and Gabriel on my account, and now you’re practically saying you would . . .”— _don’t say Fall, don’t say Fall, don’t even_ think _it because it’s not going to happen—_ ”you know . . . for me. Almost seems like you really mean it or something.”

“Oh, I do,” Aziraphale breathes. “I’m yours, my dear, if you’ll have me.”

As if there was any question. Crowley surges forward with an eager kiss, making a vaguely affirmative noise in the back of his throat that trails into a needy moan as their hips meet and shift with exquisite friction.

“And we’ll talk more later,” Aziraphale adds against his lips, practically into his mouth. It tickles a bit and makes Crowley laugh, but mostly he’s exquisitely happy—because yeah, they probably should finish properly resolving all the sticking points they’d thrown at each other before, and his first instinct after all this time is to let it roll like water off a duck. But Aziraphale . . . 

. . . Aziraphale _sees_ that, and is throwing them both a lifeline. 

“I’ll never go to sleep without telling you again,” Crowley blurts out, and kisses him again. 

Later, perfect memories or no, neither will be quite sure who started doing what first. Buttons freed, zippers undone, waistcoat discarded, shirts thrown aside, and this time they don’t stop. This time there’s no flinching, and Aziraphale urges Crowley to do new things, _good things_ ; to show him what to do with his hands and how to revel in Earthly pleasures of the flesh, right there against the bookshop counter. 

Outside, the clouds part slightly over drizzly London, and the sun paints a vivid rainbow that’s reflected in every rain puddle and window in the city. 

* * *

Some time later, Aziraphale is staring up at the bookshop ceiling, eyes tracing the shadowed cobwebs strung between the rafters. He feels . . . so different, and yet exactly the same. Giddy, sated, relaxed—and most importantly, his Grace is still intact. Loving Crowley hasn’t pulled him down. In fact, he’s never felt lighter. 

And yet, there’s so much on his mind. He’d seen the rainbow out the window earlier, before sunset, but it had faded with dusk and left him to follow slowly on the trail of an idea that’s been niggling at him since yelling at Michael. 

**_You will not talk about him that way._ **

He stands by those words and the protectiveness that fueled them. He’s just . . . not sure they were his, exactly. God moves in mysterious ways, and while She doesn’t tend to drop things into people’s heads the same way Crowley used to receive his ready-thought instructions from Hell, that’s not to say She wouldn’t. Especially to serve some ineffable purpose. 

“Do you think,” he murmurs eventually, “that we were ever supposed to be what it says on the tin?”

Crowley lifts his head and props his chin on Aziraphale’s bare chest, eyes heavy lidded but alert enough. They’re resting on a pile of pillows and tartan down duvets, nestled under black silk sheets—a team effort at snuggling up comfortably together on the bookshop floor. 

“How do you mean?”

Smiling, Aziraphale attempts to brush down the red hair that’s sticking in all kinds of directions and doesn’t mind at all when said hair resists his efforts. “Just thinking about the Ineffable Plan. About . . . whether you did do the right thing, with the apple, in a way only a demon could do. And perhaps I did the wrong thing by giving away my sword, setting the stage for War and so on, but in a way only an angel might manage.”

Crowley raises an eyebrow, arching subtly into the hand in his hair. “Maybe.”

“We needed each other,” Aziraphale continues. “Never would have been in the right position to save the world without our little Arrangement.” It hadn’t been little at all, and they both know it. “I wouldn’t have considered doing anything without you to talk me into it, and you wouldn’t have been able to act without the pretense of opposing my influence. I doubt any other angel or demon would have been capable of it, without the sort of history we have.”

“Not sure where you’re going with this, angel.”

“Angel,” Aziraphale repeats softly. “I’m not a very good one, certainly not the sort of angel everyone seems to have expected of me, but . . . I am that which I am.”

“Wouldn’t be you if you weren’t you,” Crowley agrees amiably, patiently. He seems more relaxed than Aziraphale has ever seen him, in all their long history—soft and golden-eyed as a pat of butter sprawled across warm bread, love rolling off him in waves. 

Watching Crowley now, running his fingers through his hair, Aziraphale knows himself well enough to understand that he’s been in love with this creature pressed flush against him for quite a bit longer than he’d realized. It had grown slowly, sprouting and blooming a little more with every accidental meeting, every genuine smile the demon let slip past the Big Bad Demon act, every small kindness unnecessarily and unexpectedly shown. Like ivy, the climbing vines so long established now that this love was simultaneously prising him apart and holding him together. 

“And you’re a demon,” he continues, “but not a terribly bad one. Neither of us is quite what it says on the tin. . . . Are we supposed to be, though? Were we ever really?”

Crowley yawns. “No. ‘S not as black and white as all that.”

“Exactly,” Aziraphale says and sits up, ignoring the disgruntled squawk of a demon sliding face first towards his lap.[3] He can feel the light of an epiphany building within, and beams with the mounting excitement of it. “Every speck of light carries the potential for a rainbow, given the right prism. You can be created to be or to do something very specific, but once you really get a handle on what that _is_ , you can be more than just the sum of your base purpose. You can decide to keep it or to put it aside. Adam made that choice; so did we, when we decided to stand on Our Side together, but I don’t think we’re quite done yet. I think there’s still some part we have to play in the Ineffable Plan!”

“Have to?” Crowley grumbles. “Right now?” He nuzzles into Aziraphale’s soft stomach, and upon getting no particular reaction blows a small raspberry against the pale skin. 

“You old serpent,” Aziraphale chides, urging him to sit up too. “I didn’t mean that in the sense of needing to, exactly. It’s just that, I think we are. By making these choices. It’s important, somehow.” When Crowley props himself up to a sitting position, Aziraphale kisses him for a long, languorous moment. Then he adds softly, “Us being together is important.”

“Well yeah, I should think so.” Crowley leans closer, nuzzling his shoulder now, and pauses. “Oh. You mean the free will thing.”

“Exactly! We _chose_ , Crowley. We _chose_ to try and save the world. And earlier, even Gabriel said something about not wanting to take me back to Heaven _against my will_. Imagine, an archangel talking like that! It’s something to do with our influences on each other, I’m sure of it.”

“Not supposed to have free will,” his demon murmurs against his collarbone. “Everyone knows angels and demons don’t, God didn’t invent that until She got around to humans.” He licks, causing Aziraphale to shiver, and exhales warmly—so warmly for a creature who is technically cold blooded—against the damp spot he’s made. “Mm, you’re so . . . Fuck, this feels like a dream. If it is I never want to wake up.”

“You dream?” Aziraphale asks, surprised. Another thing they’re not supposed to have, he knows, but Crowley has been dabbling in sleep for so long now that it makes sense he’d have picked it up. “What. . . . What’s that like?”

“Uh . . . blurry?” Crowley gives a sheepish shrug. “It depends. Sometimes good, sometimes terrible.”

At the prospect of Crowley having bad dreams, something in Aziraphale goes even softer for this strange, beautiful demon by his side. “You have nightmares?” he asks, brushing mussed red hair carefully back from golden eyes. 

Again, Crowley leans into the touch. “Yeah, but not often. Mostly it’s just confusing. The first time I had a dream I had to ask a human about it after, I was so sure I’d had a funny mushroom without noticing or something.”

It feels so _important_ , the elusive idea Aziraphale is trying to chase, and he’s still trying to put his finger on why. Not that he minds Crowley’s obvious fascination with his corporation, distracting though it might be. Maybe they have time for further . . . indulgence. . . .

 _Wait_. He blinks and mentally plays back the last sentence of the conversation. The breath he doesn’t technically need catches in his throat. “Crowley, that’s it. It’s _humans_.”

“What about them?”

“Remember what you told me about eternity once?” Aziraphale hesitates, not sure if this is a wise subject to touch on, given that the last time he’d thought about that day had been during their argument. “About how you learned what eternity meant by Falling?”

Crowley favors him with a slow blink. “Yeah. Why?”

“We didn’t understand the concept of linear time at first, and it caused all sorts of problems trying to figure it out for ourselves. She didn’t want to make the same, er . . . didn’t want us to take the same missteps when it came to other new things, so She made humans with things like dreams and imagination and free will already built in—to show us by example! Only, everyone was so wrapped up in thwarting and whiling the Other Side that they didn’t pay proper attention. Except _we_ did, because we’ve been stationed down here in the thick of it the entire time!”

Crowley is frowning faintly but definitely paying more attention now, the wheels in his head almost visibly turning. “Makes sense,” he says, stretching. Aziraphale’s eyes are, naturally, drawn down the taut lines of his body in appreciation. 

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” the angel starts, then remembers that he’s trying to tell Crowley something. “. . . You don’t seem very interested in this line of conversation.”

“I’m definitely interested,” Crowley protests, though there’s a teasing edge to the words that suggest he’s followed Aziraphale’s line of sight. “But honestly, angel, what you’re talking about sounds like a lot of responsibility that I’d rather not be stuck with. Especially if what you’re getting at is that we’re supposed to get this to catch on, because good luck getting Heaven and Hell on board with that.”

“You, ah.” Aziraphale forces his gaze back up before it can settle much lower than love-bitten hips. “You don’t think they’ll like the idea?”

“Come on, angel, you heard Michael. Even if it were just you doing the talking, she doesn’t want me getting my dirty demon claws on anyone else. You might be my forbidden apple but I don’t think you’d fall far enough from the tree for her comfort.”

Part of him wants to protest, but remembers all too well the plummeting feeling of multiple failures at getting Heaven to listen before the Apocalypse. The painful desperation of it, not because he somehow thought that the answer might be different if only he tried harder, but the terrible fear that it wouldn’t. Even now, Aziraphale shies away from invoking those memories too closely, his thoughts jumping and skipping ahead to the end of the demon’s statement, which sends a blush rising quickly to his cheeks. “Apple?”

“Or whatever fruit you like, since it doesn’t seem to matter much what kind.” Crowley, ever the tempting serpent, slides a hand onto Aziraphale’s thigh. “Pears?”

Aziraphale bites his lip—not in worry, for a change, but in anticipation of where that hand might travel—and says, almost sighs, “I like pears.” A pleasant warmth is coiling in his belly at Crowley’s touch. They can always talk more about this later. 

“So do I,” Crowley murmurs, so close to his ear now that he’s practically nibbling, and Aziraphale wants nothing more to melt into this moment. “I like biting into them, ssinking my teeth in sssslowly and really . . . taking the time to _sssavor_ each bite.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale gasps, shivering. The hand on his lap slithers between his thighs and elicits a low moan with one gentle stroke, then another, more firmer one. They can, he supposes, lay back again. The whole way down, Crowley’s golden snake-eyes are so earnest, so thoroughly naked and devoted and vulnerable and _happy_ , that Aziraphale’s heart feels full to bursting. 

It all feels so natural, as though everything they’ve ever done, every feeling they’ve ever danced around for centuries before admitting it even to themselves, has led inexorably to this firework display building in his limbs, his blood, his soul. All the colors that he carries inside, every hue that knowing Crowley has brought out in him—Aziraphale finally feels free to experience them fully. 

“Turn over for me,” he urges gently. The hesitation in Crowley’s eyes and the sudden tension in his lithe body is like a knife to the gut, with a heavy twist of guilt. It’s only to be expected after his first reaction to the demon’s bare back, but he still hasn’t _looked_ at the scars, and what they’d done more recently had been mostly confined to their fronts. “Please, my love. Let me see.” 

There’s a long moment where he holds his breath, not sure if Crowley will trust him ( _should_ trust him) enough. But then slowly, slowly, Crowley shifts until he’s sitting with his back to him, head down and shoulders slightly hunched, fully on display. 

_Glad to see I wasted my time trusting you then_. The words echo through Aziraphale’s head and he bites his lip as he reaches out, gingerly, to touch. It’s a testament to how tense Crowley has become that he doesn’t even flinch when contact is finally made. 

The skin feels like it did before: unnaturally smooth in some places and oddly textured in others, slightly cooler than the occasional unblemished patch. He wants to run his hand straight down, but instead his fingertips follow the contours of unevenly healed tissue in unexpected directions, which seems somehow fitting. Nothing about Crowley has ever gone as he would have expected. 

Aziraphale rolls onto his knees, tangling his legs in the sheets but not paying any notice to that. He presses his palm flat over Crowley’s spine and feels him let out a long, shaky exhale. 

“Angel?” 

The voice is so small, so fragile, that Aziraphale leans forward impulsively and lays an open-mouthed kiss on the nape of his neck. Crowley twitches under him in surprise but otherwise stays still, taut as a bowstring with the urge to bolt. This. . . . _This_ is the demon at his most vulnerable, truly. 

Because Aziraphale can see, now, the pattern in the scars. He’d expected to see hellish burns caused by fire, not the faint impression of wings—calami, rachises, barbs, and all. Sliding down to kiss along one shoulder blade, he remembers. . . 

. . . The first time he’d seen Crowley’s wings on the wall of Eden, fluttering in the pre-storm air as they unfolded from the ether. They had been fascinating in an I’m-not-supposed-to-look, corner-of-the-eye sort of way, the utter blackened _darkness_ of them.

. . . Feathers spread to the night sky as they flew home over the Namib, holding hands even though it made flying into the wind more difficult. The whole way, he’d felt Crowley’s wingbeat alongside his like a heartbeat, pulsing and strong. 

He’s only seen the one pair of blackened yet otherwise undamaged wings, but there must have been others, lost to the Fall. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sighs, and kisses where the surviving wing joints would be if they weren’t tucked away right now. He explores Crowley’s back with his lips and hands, worshiping and kneading with such devotion that eventually the demon starts to relax. It takes a while, but they have time. To show Crowley that he is safe and loved and whole in his own way, Aziraphale is willing to devote all the time in the world.

* * *

1They don’t actually live that far apart. Driving to the shop is just Crowley’s way of pretending they do, leftover from when they were still play-acting at being enemies—and besides, driving has more _style_. It works out to roughly one mile, and he covers that distance in a quite respectable four minutes.[2]

2Admittedly, Crowley isn’t built for distance running. He’s barely built for walking. But for a supernatural being, these things are all about expectations; he just remembers that technically he’s on the side of a sphere and really he’s _falling_ towards the bookshop. Return to text

3Aziraphale pays this no particular mind, other than to file it away for future consideration. There will be plenty of time for that later. Return to text


	7. The Ground Beneath

Opposites attract. 

Crowley had always thought that had applied to himself and Aziraphale. In hindsight, though, everything they’d bonded over throughout the centuries had been to do with their similarities. . . . or at least, the things they had more in common with each other than with their fellow demons and angels. Because Aziraphale is fussy where he isn’t (except when it comes to his plants, his facade of evil coolness, and his ever present sunglasses); Aziraphale is passionately over-indulgent where he isn’t (except with his luxuriously long naps, his taste in cars, and the gaudy throne that dominates his study simply because it caught his eye one day); Aziraphale smiles brilliantly and is soft and kind where he isn’t (except when no one is looking, when the angel needs his help with literally anything, and when kids are involved). 

. . . Alright, so maybe not entirely opposite, strange as that is to admit. So there’s a second axiom to pick apart alongside the baffling realization that they have, in fact, had free will this entire time and just not known how to use it properly. They spend several days discussing everything, in between other activities[1]; Aziraphale has a fair amount of experience in picking walls apart brick by brick, after all. 

Neither of them has set foot outside the bookshop in over a week by the time Crowley reluctantly admits that he should probably go back to his flat to check on the plants. 

“But I don’t want to go,” he adds quickly. 

“Of course not, dear,” Aziraphale hums, kissing the snake mark on the side of his face. The angel has taken to lavishing affection there as though diligently trying to prove that it’s _not_ a Do Not Touch sign. It still makes him flush giddily every time. “But I know how important your plants are to you. I wouldn’t want them to suffer on my account.”

“Well, er,” Crowley mumbles, turning and sliding down in the nest of bedding that hadn’t existed a week ago to hide his smile at the affection against Aziraphale’s neck. “I mean, they won’t die if they know what’s good for them. . . .” 

“Nonsense.” Chuckling, Aziraphale gives him a nudge. “I’ll be here when you return, I assure you. Besides, I’d rather like to see how you squirm into those tight pants of yours. . . . Assuming you don’t simply miracle them on, of course.”

Crowley rolls his eyes but obligingly flops over and wiggles out from under the duvet with a sound like “Nnnghumph.” He stretches, feeling the weight of Aziraphale’s eyes on his back. This is another thing they’ve talked about extensively—his scars are reminders that he has survived, something that Aziraphale can touch gently, can press the pads of his fingers to and thank Someone because they’re signs of how strong and resilient his demon is. 

Or that’s what Aziraphale keeps telling him anyway, in words and in a thousand other little ways. Crowley doesn’t believe him exactly, but is . . . willing to humor him, and maybe belief will eventually follow. All he feels sure of right now is that he’s had more massages in the past week than he has in his entire life, and it’s unraveled knots in muscles that he hadn’t even noticed had been tense for decades. 

So he’s not wildly self-conscious, but he also has absolutely no qualms about laying down atop the covers and putting on an elaborate show of wiggling into his tight black jeans. He looks up at Aziraphale, savoring the indulgent smile and rapt attention and the slight parting of the angel’s lips, and thinks, _What if the Almighty planned it like this all along?_

And bless it, She probably did. Crowley would like to be angry about that, but he can’t find it in himself—not when he can crawl back into Aziraphale’s arms for a lengthy I’ll-see-you-later kiss. 

* * *

After making sure Crowley is dressed sufficiently against the chilly day outside and seeing him out the front door, Aziraphale settles into the task of cleaning up the nest they’ve created behind the shop’s front counter. 

“A proper bed, I think,” Aziraphale says to himself with a smile. With but a moment’s concentration, there’s a new room on the upper story for him to carry the pile of bedding into. 

He’d always fancied the idea of a grand four-poster, so that’s what he opens the door of the new bedroom to. Big, ornately carved in the Elizabethan style, with sheer black curtains and pale, polished wood. . . . Hopefully Crowley will like it. With a happy wiggle, Aziraphale sets about making up the naked mattress with the bedding they’ve accumulated downstairs. There are almost more pillows than bed, but is that really a problem? Not as far as he’s concerned.

Well. He’s alone. There’s no one watching—not even Heaven, if what Gabriel said was true, and Aziraphale does believe him. After a moment’s consideration and biting his lip, a mischievous smile breaks across his face and after a few steps back he takes a running jump onto the freshly made bed. 

It’s like sinking into a cloud. Aziraphale has never felt so light in his entire existence, and it’s largely, he knows, because of Crowley. Because . . . yes, now that he actually lets himself, he can acknowledge that these deep-running feelings cut a path through his heart ages ago, he had just never let himself think about it. The first spark of realization had been when their fingers had grazed whilst Crowley handed off a bag of books in 1941, but Aziraphale had loved him before that. Long before. He’d been wading, swimming, _drowning_ in love for ages, and scarcely known it beyond an abiding loneliness whenever the demon wasn’t around. 

Not now, though. Crowley will be back soon, and in the meantime that knowledge is more than enough to keep him happily buoyed. It seems so long ago that he was in the demon’s flat, despondently misting the plants and pointedly _not_ thinking about laying down beside his adversary’s slumbering form. . . . Which, now that he thinks about it, he should have done. “If only I’d been ready,” he mutters to himself, and rolls over to lay face down and spread eagled on the pillows, inhaling deeply to capture their co-mingled scents and remind himself that he _is now_. And nothing bad has come of it, praise God. 

Aziraphale finds himself laughing into the piles of bedding, and along with the laughter comes a faint dampness to the fabrics pressed against his face. Tears for all the time lost and opportunities wasted over the centuries, because he hadn’t been ready when in the end there hadn’t been anything to fear. Tears for this glorious freedom that tastes all the more sweet for how hard-won it is. 

Happy tears, because the light at the end of the tunnel has always been _Our Side._

* * *

Wearing significantly more clothes than he has in days (including a tartan scarf to guard against the stiff breeze), Crowley walks home with more of a bounce in his saunter than usual. He misses Aziraphale already, of course, but not in any way he’s experienced before. It’s not the moody, restless gloom of wondering when they’ll next run into each other, nor the raw nerves and resignation of after their fight; it’s lighter, more anticipatory. It’s a feeling that thrums a promise in his blood and bones, a full-body _soon_ that would have him dancing down the pavement if he actually knew how to dance. And Hell (or Heaven, or _wherever_ , who even cares anymore), maybe he’ll learn. Maybe they can take lessons. Why not? Aziraphale would love that. . . .

He’s so wrapped up in blissfully sappy thoughts along those lines that he almost misses the whiff of something in the air. Something earthy, with strong undertones of graverot-sweetness and stale campfire. Crowley slows and glances around. There are other pedestrians around, but no one seems to be watching him so he cautiously tests the air with his forked tongue. 

There’s a narrow alley just behind him—that’s where the smell is coming from, and now that he’s noticed it’s all he can do to keep from breaking out with snake scales in public. The nearby humans are avoiding walking close to the opening, most probably without realizing it and the rest likely mistaking it for some variation on ‘overripe dumpster,’ but Crowley knows better. It’s something from Hell all right, and not anything particularly strong or, from the obviousness of the smell, terribly intelligent. His lip twists, and he picks up some speed in his stride. At the next little alleyway he ducks into the shadows, testing the air again to make sure whatever it is hasn’t moved, intent on circling around and catching it. 

Heaven has already tried to get between him and Aziraphale, and as far as he’s concerned Gabriel and Michael can go choke on the unwashed, disease-ridden genitals of their choice. There’s no way he’s about to let Hell stick its nose in his business either. His flat is a mere block away, which is _not_ a comforting thought. This might be a sentry, put in place to send word when he passes by on his way into an ambush. 

Out of the public eye, Crowley relaxes a touch and feels scales rise to the surface of his back like bubbles winking in the bath. His eyes adjust easily to the dimness between apartment buildings; he is, after all, an accomplished lurker with a specialty in slithering around unnoticed. In a matter of moments he circles back to the first alley and bears down on the darker patch of shadow crouching by some overflowing bins. 

“Looking for sssomething?” he hisses as he grabs the other demon and hauls it up by the collar of a hoodie that has seen better days. The hood falls back, revealing miscellaneously dark-ish hair, and almost instantly Crowley’s hand begins to itch as though bitten by a dozen tiny insects. 

If it were human it could be called androgynous, but being demonic there’s no real need for gender to be a relevant descriptor. Baggy clothes on a thin frame, the suggestion of eyebrows that had been plucked clear off out of nervous habit, a general impression of gray, shabby, and more gray. Overall, it has the appearance of a very nondescript but relatively well-kept homeless person—which is to say, a great deal easier on the eyes and nose than demons like Hastur, but still no particular treat. At the moment, its mismatched smudgy-brown and pondslime-green eyes are open wide in terror and . . . resignation, for some reason. Maybe it’s the tartan scarf. 

“Fff-fuck,” it stutters, “I knew this was a bad idea.”

Crowley bares his teeth in a sneer. “You just earned your first gold star of the day. Now, you’re going to _explain_ the idea in _exquisite_ detail.” He pauses, then adds menacingly, “Or elssse.” Not that he’s got any definite idea of what he’s going to do with his captured prey, but there’s always the old standby of turning into a bloody huge snake and squeezing it to the point of discorporation. 

The demon twitches and nods. “Okay, I will.” 

“Right.” Scowling, Crowley lets go and gives it a little shove back against the alley wall, absently shaking his hand because it’s starting to itch. “Ssstart talking. How many of there are you?”

“What?” It doesn’t even seem to mind being shoved, choosing to focus more on scrambling to yank its hood back up and pull the edge securely down over its forehead. “Just me. Why?” Then it blinks up at him rapidly several times as realization seems to dawn. “ _Oh_. Oh, sorry. It really is just me.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

The demon raises a barely-there eyebrow in a surprising show of annoyance, given the situation. “Look, I swear on my dishonor, alright? I can sign a full disclosure contract if you want.”

Crowley narrows his eyes. “Ssswear on your wingsss.”

Because no demon, as he is keenly aware of following everything that’s happened between Aziraphale and himself, likes being reminded of their Fall. Even the ones with scars on their faces have taken to covering those old injuries with cold silver foil. Most don’t even have any wing left, just stumps, or at best bones stripped of feathers and skinned over just enough to appear batlike. They keep them tucked away unless forced because it’s the most visceral reminder of what they’d lost in Falling. 

It’s a long moment before the demon replies, but it does, wincing. “Fine. I swear on my ww-wings.” 

Stammer aside, its voice is stronger than Crowley would’ve expected. 

“So,” the demon continues, some evidence of awe starting to creep into its voice, “you’re really him. _The_ demon Crowley.” 

It’s not a question. 

* * *

When Aziraphale runs out of tears and laughter, he sits up with a slow stretch. Crowley will still be some time in returning yet, and there's one more thing he’d like to do in the meantime. 

He piles the pillows by the head of the bed and sits in the center of the mattress. One flick of the wrist and a tray of candles appears before him: seven votives in seven glass holders. He hadn’t quite intended for the glass to be all different colors, but it seems fitting somehow—yet another rainbow cropping up where he hadn’t expected one. With each such sign, he feels more secure that this is indeed the right path, and for that he must give thanks. It has been quite some time since he felt this urge so keenly. 

Aziraphale closes his eyes. Takes a long, slow series of breaths until he slips into a state of perfect stillness, perfect clarity, with prayers rising powerfully to his lips and in his heart, for a proper prayer is always best conjured from both the flesh and the spirit. He opens his eyes again and conjures a book of matches. 

“Who am I, O Lord God?” he says softly, striking a match and setting it to the first wick. Red glass, the color of heartsblood and life. “And what is my heart, that You have brought it thus far?”

_I am but one angel, yet you chose me for this fate. I’m so glad. If you hadn’t, I would never have found him, been meant for him._

Another match. The flame catches inside the orange glass. “And yet this was a small thing in Your sight, O Lord God; and You have also spoken of Your servant’s heart for a great while to come. Is this the manner of man, O Lord God, that I was meant to know?”

_It must have been part of the Ineffable Plan; we were made so we might grow to become what we are now. For the sake of saving the Earth and knowing this freedom._

The candle in the yellow glass burns brightest yet. “Now what more can I say to You? For You, Lord God, know Your servant. For Your word’s sake, and according to Your own heart, You have done all these great things, to make Your servant know them. . . .

_But what are we supposed to do from here? What is our purpose, now that we know love and have the free will to choose it?_

Green, once lit, reminds him of light filtering through the trees in Eden, when the world was still new. “Now, O Lord God, the word which You have spoken concerning Your servant and concerning his heart, establish it forever and do as You have said.”

_Whatever it is, please don’t take Crowley from me. I couldn’t bear it. Please, please let us endure whatever the Ineffable Plan asks of us._

As he lights the candle in the blue glass, it seems to wink at him like a twinkling star in the heavens. “So let Your name be magnified forever, saying, ‘The Lord of hosts is the God over Our Side.’ And let the heart of Your servant Aziraphale be established before You.”

_If what’s to come is anything like the Apocalypse, I’m afraid that there will be plenty of people who are bound to get rather angry. I will stand fast if you desire it of me—but if there is any danger, please let Crowley be spared. I cannot stand without my foundation._

The cool, purplish blue of the indigo glass glows brightly when he lights it, warm and cold all at once. “For You, O Lord, have revealed this to Your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a love.’ Therefore Your servant has found it in his heart to pray this prayer to You.”

_You who have laid every piece of the universe, who knew me when I was unformed, who breathed life into me. . . . You who have made me and given me my purpose. And made Crowley, and guided me near him as you did, to one day be instruments of our own wills._

He lights the seventh candle, a warm violet. The color of grandeur and devotion, of peace and mystery. “And now, O Lord God, You are God, and Your words are true, and You have promised this goodness to Your servant. Now therefore, let it please You to bless the love of Your servant, that it may continue before You forever; for You, O Lord God, have spoken it, and with Your blessing let the heart of Your servant be blessed forever.”

_Show me what steps to take next, because I know there’s some path there that my eyes are too humble to have seen yet. Show me what we must do. . . . As, in hindsight, You always have._

_And, er, God . . . if Crowley gets tetchy about following Your guidance, please don’t mind him. His heart is in the right place, whatever he says, as I’m sure you know. That must be why you offered him Redemption, even while You probably had Your own reasons for being pleased when he declined. It will all be for the best in the end._

“Amen,” Aziraphale finishes out loud. He remains still for several long moments afterwards, allowing his gaze to relax until the votives are a flickering rainbow blur in his eyes, hoping vaguely for a response. After all, Crowley was granted an actual audience. 

There is only silence. 

**You should open the shop, Aziraphale.**

Aziraphale sighs, then chuckles a little at how silly he’s being. God will speak to him if She so wishes, not because of any entreaties on his part. At any rate, he feels more collected for having spoken his piece. 

_I should probably open the shop,_ he thinks to himself, and slides to the edge of the bed to do just that. 

He leaves the candles lit, believing quite firmly that they won’t cause any trouble left to their own devices if they know what’s good for them. 

* * *

For some reason, it had never occurred to Crowley that apparent immunity to Holy Water would make him something of a celebrity Downstairs. Not with the Lords and Dukes of Hell, of course, but all the smaller demons with less of a stake in his biddableness, who aren’t allowed to associate with him on pain of being thrown to whatever lurked in some of the deepest pits. 

It’s incredibly flattering though. He sits back in the mildly uncomfortable plastic chair of the most light-filled, stark, lurking-opportunity-free restaurant he could find—just in case—with a self-satisfied smirk. “So, you want an autograph? Who should I make it out to?”

The demon, who still has its hood of its sweatshirt firmly in place even though they’re now indoors, shrugs uncomfortably. It’s leg is bouncing fitfully under the flimsy table, “I don’t need an autograph.”

Crowley raises an eyebrow. “Right. Well, how about you take the hint and introduce yourself properly. This is Earth, not the seventh circle. They have etiquette here.”

“Oh.” It squirms uncomfortably, and the bouncing intensifies. “Émmonos. Is, uh, my name. I’m just an imp. Not of anything important really, just, compulsive behaviors.”

“Terrible to meet you,” Crowley replies cheerfully. The bouncing is starting to get on his nerves, though; it’s throwing him off his own, more casual fidgeting. “Would you stop that?”

Émmonos, who obviously a very minor demon even among imps, or it wouldn’t bother with being so deferential, swallows audibly. The bouncing slows, but doesn’t stop. “Can’t, actually,” it mutters. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley notices a woman two tables over starting to pick at her salad and fussily arranging the different ingredients into their own separate piles on the plate. He also notices a black dot on the hand he has resting on the tabletop and brushes it off. Immediately it’s back but in a slightly different place. His hand begins to itch. 

“Hey, personal question. Do you have _fleas_?”

“Er.” Émmonos winces. “Little bit, yeah. Like Lord Beelzebub has flies, you know?”

“Could you just. . . .” He looks pointedly down at his hand. “We’re demons, we’re supposed to be _cool._ ”

“I’m not,” Émmonos retorts, face reddening. It seems to be warming up to the idea of talking, though, because it leans forward and continues, “You know what I was originally created for? Making things go in circles—all those protons and electrons that go into making even something as basic as your average clump of dirt. Worrying about things being in _exactly_ the right place. Repeating things over and over again until it’s _perfect_ , which is technically impossible. Do you know how exhausting that is? I don’t have time to be cool. I don’t have the energy. I didn’t Fall because I wanted to commit sins, or because I asked too many questions. I Fell because I was already suffering. Everyone makes their own Hell.”

An awkward silence follows, in which Crowley wonders if being infamous for telling both Heaven _and_ Hell to fuck off means that more demons are going to start popping up and telling him their life stories. Kind of takes the appeal out of fame, really—though, to be fair, he’d started it with dredging up the whole wings thing. 

He also takes a moment to be glad that, unlike some demons, he doesn’t specialize in anything in particular. An eternity of acute single-mindedness doesn’t sound very comfortable, and even the Prince of Lust probably chafes occasionally. 

Émmonos clears its throat, looking embarrassed. “Sorry. I’ll, uh, try to rein in the fleas.”

“Great, appreciate it,” Crowley says tightly, annoyed with himself for feeling sympathy. It’s very un-demony of him, and probably comes with the territory of shacking up with an angel. He’ll have to remember to complain to Aziraphale about that later.[2] “So if you don’t want an autograph and you haven’t been sent to ambush and drag me back to Hell, why are you here? Bragging rights?”

“Oh nn-no,” it replies immediately, “I can’t tell anyone I saw you. I just, uh. I only sought you out because I had the idea and sat on it for as long as I could, but, you know. Compulsion. I had to see what would happen. Plus, I was in the area—”

“They’ll know you talked to me,” Crowley interrupts, because it seems to have a problem with oversharing. “There’s almost always someone watching.” 

Émmonos blinks. “Not you. Not Down There, anyway. Surveillance on you has been nixed on account of ‘you might do something in good taste,’ and no one wants to see that. Did you . . . not know that?”

That, Crowley shrugs off with feigned effortlessness—but he hadn’t. It tracks with this nervous thing seeking him out to . . . just say hello apparently. 

It takes another half hour of prodding and interrogating until Crowley is satisfied, but in the end he decides that Émmonos isn’t lying. In fact, he’s not sure it’s even capable of lying, from the way it goes on, basically until stopped and given a different topic to run with. Overall it seems resigned yet dissatisfied with the way Hell is being run—has always been run, unchanging for millennia. Crowley can absolutely understand that, and though it hasn’t had the convenience of a permanent Earth assignment to fall back on it has nevertheless spent a fair amount of time amidst humans. 

“I don’t mind them,” Émmonos admits glumly. “Controversial opinion Down There, but, well, there it is. Some of the assignments I get are way over the top, if you ask me, considering the kinds of things they tend to get up to all on their own, but that’s just the price of coming up here for some fresh air.”

Crowley frowns at the other demon from behind his sunglasses. “If you don’t like messing humans around, why do it?”

Émmonos stares at him, no comprehension evident in its expression. “Huh?”

“If you don’t like doing it, why not just phone it in and let them do it to themselves?” Crowley is starting to get annoyed. “Come on, you’re letting your side up here. Didn’t you ever ask questions?”

“Oh.” It relaxes minutely. “Well, yeah. All the time. Same questions over and over, even to one’s I got answers for. I do that a lot. Even before Falling, it was hard to . . . to seem all angelic and holy and secure in my place within creation when I couldn’t stop obsessing over whether that electron is supposed to go _here_ or _there._ Because, I mean, there had to be a right place for everything. Get things wrong on an atom and you have an entirely different element on your hands, so it stands to reason, right? If there’s a plan. Not that I ever questioned whether there was one, I just. . . .” 

The smudged face twists into an expression of puzzled anxiety that Crowley recognizes from his own internal wrestling with _opposites attract_ and so on. Maybe even sympathizes with, if he were into that sort of thing. It’s the look of someone trying to put into words something so deeply embedded in their being that it’s difficult to bring entirely into focus. 

“I never felt like _I_ was in the right place. Not in Heaven, not in Hell. It’s a little better here because it’s not like most humans ever know where they belong in the grand scheme of things, really. The stuff I do to them is mostly in their heads and it’s still more debilitating than all but the most outright forms of torture, but the thing is I don’t do it to them on purpose so much as it just . . . happens because I’m around.” Émmonos offers a wan smile. “What I’ve gotten out of sitting in on a _lot_ of therapy up here in recent decades is that, deep down, I’ve always figured that if I tried to rearrange everything around me I would, I don’t know. Fit better. Or something. Freud told me it was all because of my mother, and you know, maybe he had a point.”

_Alright, that’s it_ , Crowley thinks. Clearly this is someone who could easily go on talking for eternity, and among demons that isn’t an idle threat. Besides, he has a lot better things to be getting on with—watering his plants and getting back to his angel to tell him about this bizarre encounter, for a start—than talking about Sigmund ‘Everyone has an Oedipus complex’ Freud.[3]

“Yeah, well, he said that to a lot of people.” Crowley claps his hands on the plastic armrests and stands to go. “It’s been interesting. Great seeing you, I’ve got to get going now. Keep it real. _Don’t_ follow me again, got it?”

The demon nods, looking a bit relieved that its audience is over. “I ww-won’t. And . . . thanks for not discorporating me. If you ever need a, a minor breakdown on someone’s part or a really thorough cleaning service or anything, give me a summon.”

Crowley raises an eyebrow at the offer. “Well . . . thanks.”

He stalks out of the cafe, already mulling over implications while remaining high-strung vigilant just in case of any other surprise visitors. Demons generally don’t seek each other out unless forced or angling for something, and they _definitely_ don’t go around offering favors without a quid pro quo. Émmonos must have spent quite a bit of time around humans indeed. 

And _that_ thought pings off of something that he can’t quite put his finger on, which he spends the entire time in his flat, as well as the drive back to the bookshop, trying to pinpoint. 

* * *

It’s a lovely winter day outside, crisp and clear. There are a fair amount of customers in the shop but, for once, Aziraphale isn’t terribly concerned. He’s even been persuaded to part with a seventh edition novella that he didn’t much care for. And every time the bell over the front door rings he looks up in expectation, though rather than mind when it isn’t Crowley, he finds himself savoring the anticipation, the giddy spike in his corporation’s heart rate. Behind his genially welcoming smile there is a vast reservoir of happiness, peace, and contentment. 

Ironic, isn’t it, that having intimate relations with a demon can make him feel so much more angelic and connected to the benevolence of the Almighty than he has in a long, long time. In a way, it’s like the bookshop is brand new again—most of the books had already been old even in 1800, so the smell is the same, and aside from making things somewhat larger on the inside he’s hardly changed anything about the place since the afternoon Crowley had tried to bring him flowers and chocolates. 

. . . The corners of Crowley’s mouth fixed in an unguarded, wondering smile, as though he still can’t believe this is real, as his lips explore Aziraphale’s body. How his tongue sometimes ventures to lick and taste. Sometimes hissing, sometimes gasping when praised for his efforts, each of them begging for more. 

Aziraphale blinks, face warming, and with an absentminded hello to the young woman who’s just entered the shop, decides that perhaps he shouldn’t stand behind the counter where they’d made their indulgent nest. He has never been particularly prone to daydreaming before—but prior to the past week, there were a lot of things he’d never done before that he’s now fairly proficient in. As he moves amongst his books, he finds himself skimming over the memories of Crowley’s pale skin, stretched like velum over sharp angles and soft, tender spots alike. Just as rare, and intimately more precious. He had mapped everything. It will be preserved in his angelically perfect memory forever . . . and still he _wants_. More. An eternity of more. 

The bell above the door rings again, and again his head snaps around to see that this time it is Crowley after all, still wearing the tartan scarf Aziraphale had insistently wound around his neck earlier. Aziraphale breaks into a smile that could replace the sun for how brightly it might light the heavens. From behind his dark glasses, Crowley takes a quick scan of the shop, taking in the handful of humans inside it with a small moue of annoyance, before making a beeline for the angel. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley hisses in a low voice that immediately gives Aziraphale goosebumps for several different reasons. 

“Yes?” he replies, and is shushed for his trouble. Crowley sidles closer while looking around for eavesdropping customers, sending one young woman who had apparently been approaching to ask a question retreating back into the shelves.

“Why did you open the shop? I was only gone for an hour and a half,” the demon continues quietly. “I need to tell you something, it’s urgent.”

“Sorry, didn’t know,” Aziraphale murmurs, aspiring to look appropriately serious but actually landing more on fondly cross-eyed. “Speaking of not knowing, why are we whispering?”

Crowley gives a put-upon sigh and shoots him a Look over the top of his sunglasses. “Because it’s _urgent_. Have you not watched any of the spy movies I’ve recommended to you over the years?”

“I’m afraid not.” Aziraphale gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “You know I’m not much for the talking pictures, my dear.”

“Yeah, well,” Crowley grumbles, but accepts the hand sliding down his arm to hold his readily enough. “Movies, angel. They’re called movies.” 

“But they were already moving. Surely the name changed with the technology. . . ?”

The sigh is even more put-upon this time. “. . . You’re just winding me up, aren’t you?”

Aziraphale intertwines their fingers and gives Crowley’s hand a squeeze. “I might be.”

“Did I mention _urgent_ , angel? And I still have to fill you in on what took me so long, too.”

The love bubbling up through Aziraphale’s very being is too much, no amount of surreptitiously biting his lip can prevent him from smiling any longer. “Terribly sorry, my dear. You’re just so adorably cross when correcting my anachronisms that I couldn’t resist.” 

A slight sound intruded upon their conversation, managing to sound politely apologetic. They turn, and Aziraphale recognizes the obtruder as both the most recent customer to enter the shop and the young woman that Crowley had scared off a few moments ago. He takes note of the discrete streaks dyed into her braided black hair and is hardly surprised, at this point, to see it’s all the colors of the rainbow.

Then he notices the white messenger bag slung over her shoulder, and the golden wings pinned to the front of it. Although he doesn’t have Crowley’s sense of smell, now that he’s sniffing for it he does catch a faint whiff of ozone and patchouli. 

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” Aziraphale bursts out indignantly, “if Gabriel or Michael wish to discuss anything further why can’t they call? Or simply drop it in the post like regular people instead of troubling a messenger with it, _honestly_.”

Beside him, Crowley gives a snort of agreement, wraps an arm sinuously—and suggestively—around his shoulders, and hisses, “We’re not interesssted, ssso go away.”

“I don’t have a message for you,” the angel says quickly, holding both hands up slightly in a gesture of peaceableness. Aziraphale, who can feel Crowley trying to tug him into some sort of provocative embrace, decides to give her the benefit of the doubt and remains in place despite the temptation. “I just wanted to . . . well, say hello.”

“Hello?” Aziraphale echoes, perplexed. “Why?”

The angel blinks back, clearly surprised. “Because you’re _the_ Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate. You stood up to the _archangels_. You wouldn’t believe how many in my department would love to take a page out of your book and tell them where they can put some of the work orders they send us.” She looks hesitantly at Crowley, who has stopped tugging and, instead, rests his chin on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “And you must be the demon Crowley. We’ve, uh, all heard the rumors about you.”

“Only the worst, I hope,” Crowley replies, to Aziraphale’s further surprise sounding almost cordial. “So, what gave you the nerve to stop by?”

“Nerve?” Aziraphale repeats. He feels rather as though he’s missed something, and is both glad that the demon seems to have some sort of handle on what’s going on and a bit pouty over not being filled in on what precisely that is. 

Crowley shrugs. It’s very odd to experience the gesture while he’s draped himself over Aziraphale like some sort of man-shaped shawl, hip bumping against hip with the action. “You heard Michael the other day, angel. They haven’t lost any angels to the likes of us, _yet_ , but they can sense dissent building amongst the ranks. It’s not like in Hell, where dissent is expected but still crushed with an iron boot. _You_ set a toe out of line and still have your wings to show for it; of course all the small fry want to come have a friendly chat.”

“Oh, ah.” Aziraphale glances at the angel, hoping she wasn’t offended by the _small fry_ comment. “Don’t be rude, my dear, we’re all angels here—” 

“I am not, I’m a bloody demon and damned proud of it!” 

“Angel stock, then, dear boy. Technically.” 

“No, he’s right,” the other angel interjects, and then looks rather embarrassed when their attention snaps back to her. “If you want to get technical about it, you’re a Principality. The only Malakhim around here is me, waving up at you from two choirs down.”

Aziraphale looks towards Crowley, who’s already turning his head to look at him. They hold eye contact for barely a second before the demon smirks and detaches, hand slithering down to pat Aziraphale lightly on the bum, then saunters off. “All right, shop’s closed,” he calls out, stalking into the shelves to roust out the more stubborn would-be customers. 

“If you would care to adjourn to the back room. . . ?” Aziraphale offers politely, giving the end of the sentence an expectant inflection.

“Umbriel,” the other angel supplies. 

He nods. “Umbriel. Right this way. Would you care for a cup of tea or cocoa?”

“Tea would be great,” she replies, following him towards the back room. “I’m sure you make an excellent cup of cocoa, but I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”

Aziraphale heads straight for the tea, kettle, and gas hob he keeps for . . . well, for personal use, of course, but also for unexpected visits such as this. “Thank you. You know, Gabriel has never taken me up on any offers of refreshment, not once. It’s rather nice to have a visitor willing to go along with Earthly customs. Please, have a seat anywhere you’d like—although I should advise you that Crowley usually prefers the sofa.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Umbriel change directions and perch on the edge of an easy chair instead, her messenger bag resting across her knees. “I spend a fair amount of time down here. Sometimes the messages I have to deliver are more like . . . waiting around to make sure humans figure out the message on their own. In the late 1990’s I had a very interesting assignment in Japan, keeping an eye on Masaru Emoto for a few years to make sure he completed some important research. Have you read his book on how human thoughts and intentions can affect the molecular structure of water?” 

Having just snapped his fingers to fill the kettle with water, Aziraphale chuckles. “I have, actually. It was a fascinating read.”

Umbriel smiles, a little wistfully. “He was one of the good ones.” The smile fades. “Not all assignments are that enjoyable, though. While all that Apocalypse stuff was starting to heat up a while back, I had to track down extraterrestrial life and delegate the actual message-giving to them, as if I wasn’t perfectly capable of doing my own job. Plus the work order was written in color pencil and with some of the most childish handwriting I’ve ever seen. You really have to wonder about the higher ups sometimes, with paperwork like that.” 

“Hm,” Aziraphale replies, staring down into the open kettle. 

“That’s part of why I’m here,” she continues. “Your, um, friend wasn’t wrong. A lot of us are getting a bit fed up with the way Heaven is being run, especially because after the whole Armageddon thing it’s become pretty clear that the archangels don’t have much more insight on God’s Plan than the rest of us. And the fact that you stood up to them and haven’t Fallen, that’s . . . that’s pretty significant. There are a lot of people who’d love to talk to you and take a crack at figuring out what it all means.”

“Hm,” Aziraphale says again. The water is beginning to steam gently. “Would that be particularly wise? It’s a bit of a Pandora’s box, I’m afraid; it might get them in a great deal of trouble that they aren’t prepared to face.” 

Knowing that your own could turn on you so quickly, for example. Knowing they’d sentenced you to die with a song in their heart. 

“An apple from the tree of knowledge, one might say.” Crowley strolls into the room, giving Aziraphale a look over the tops of his sunglasses that clearly means _I heard that and guessed what you’re thinking about, are you alright?_ Aziraphale responds silently with a smile and a nod, and takes the water from the hob to pour into three mugs. 

He’s always better for the demon’s presence. Now that he’s acknowledged that, body and soul, he can see that he always has been, in one way or another. Crowley has always been there to catch him when he falters. “All closed up?”

Crowley drapes himself across the sofa, settling in a convenient stray beam of light from a nearby window like a particularly svelte cat stretching in the sun. If they didn’t have company, Aziraphale would be quite tempted—and from the way Crowley catches his gaze and smirks, he knows it, too. “Yep. Flipped the sign and everything.”

“Thank you.” Aziraphale brings their guest the first mug, then carries the second and third over to the sofa and settles next to the demon, nudging him to sit up at least a bit to make room and then handing him his tea. The mug Aziraphale keeps for himself is white, with a handle styled to look like wings; Crowley’s is red with a curling devil’s tail for a handle, already modified with just the amount of cream and sugar he likes. “Umbriel here was just telling me about some of her experiences here on Earth.”

After sitting up with an indecipherable grumble, Crowley flicks his forked tongue out over the tea “Umbriel, huh? Interesting name.”

“From the Latin _umbra_ , meaning shadow,” Aziraphale adds. 

“You have a moon named after you, somewhere,” Crowley muses thoughtfully. 

Umbriel, blowing steam from the top of her still-steeping tea, pauses to grimace. “Uranus’ darkest moon. Try having a name that’s basically a synonym for darkness while the archangels are in a twist about something.” She sighs. “I’m not going to lie, I’m not very high on the totem pole in my department and my God-given name is part of the reason why.”

Aziraphale studies her with his head to one side, the wheels beginning to turn. One does not reject the name given to them by the Almighty, and it doesn’t sound to him as though Umbriel is trying to do so—it’s the angels around her, the fellow angels who have taken the human meaning of the name into account when deciding the social pecking order amongst themselves. He had experienced something similar following the fall of Eden, when the archangels had roundly chastised him for allowing Eve to fall prey to the temptation of knowing Good and Evil. Never mind that his actual assignment had been to guard the Eastern Gate from outside forces and not the bloody fruit from the garden’s own residents . . . and technically, _technically_ , Crowley had never breached the gate. He’d come up directly from Below, a direction the meaning of _eastern_ could not reasonably be stretched to encompass. But at any rate, being on permanent Earth-side assignment had been rather a reflection of that, as it put him metaphysically further from God than even the Malakhim regularly stayed. 

. . . . Which wasn’t the point, except that none of his fellow angels (Principalities or otherwise) have looked at him quite the same ever since and there was nothing he could do about it, so he can empathise. And what has he done about the passive yet pervasive ostracisation?

He glances around at the books around them. Recalls the earthly bliss of a perfectly handled piece of sashimi melting on the tongue. The suffusing warmth of having consumed a fair amount of fine wine. It may be indulgent to surround himself in these earthly things, but they’re all made from the firmament of God’s creation and he can’t see anything particularly wrong with seeking comfort in them. 

Aziraphale’s gaze settles on Umbriel’s hair. “Is that why . . . the rainbow?” he asks. 

“Hm? Oh!” Umbriel puts a hand to her braid, sheepishly tracing a purple streak. “Well, yeah. I used to have it bleached back in the late BCs. Got away with it because I kept ending up around the Celts a lot, and it seemed like a reasonable way to blend in on the job, even if it was a little drastic. I thought if I _looked_ less dark, everyone might ease up a bit in thinking I would _turn out_ to be dark.” She shrugs. “It kind of worked. Although I think the peek-a-boo rainbow look is going over better. And say what you want about chemicals, but synthetic hair dyes certainly get the job done better and longer than just slapping on some _Cassia obovata_ , turmeric, and red ochre[4] and miracling them to last.”

“It’s a lovely way to remind everyone of God’s promise to be kinder,” Aziraphale replies with a smile. 

Umbriel nods and ducks her head to sip at her tea. A little shyly, she adds, “And it’s nice to be in the hair salons, doing little miracles where I can. Tipping well. Hearing people’s stories.”

Crowley hums unexpectedly in agreement. “Getting a warm water scalp massage while they wash your hair.”

Aziraphale turns his head to stare at him, jaw going slack. Once, at some point before 1862, he had tried to persuade Crowley to make an appointment with his barber and the demon had vehemently declined. He hadn’t given much thought to Crowley getting his hair done professionally since, but now, being quite well acquainted with how touch-starved and delightfully responsive he is to fingers running through his hair, Aziraphale finds himself imagining it. This daydream comes complete with an _extremely_ distracting soundtrack. 

His mouth continues to hang open slightly. A moment later he realizes this and snaps it shut, face warming as he hastily tunes back in on the conversation at hand. 

“Angelic privilege means never having to show your roots,” Umbriel is saying. 

Crowley snorts into his tea mug. “And just where did you learn that turn of phrase?”

A faint expression appears on her face. This is, after all, a very minor angel in the presence of an indirect superior and a diabolical demon—and yet, Aziraphale recognizes the look as angelic smugness. 

“Online messaging services,” she replies, obviously pleased with the comeback. 

“Facepalm,” Crowley says, deadpan, to Aziraphale’s utter perplexment. Crowley glances his way and must see some of that in his face, because the demon scoots closer to lean against him slightly. “Anyway, full marks for paying attention to what’s going on down here. If more angels were like the two of you, Heaven might actually be bearable.”

“Hush,” Aziraphale murmurs automatically, giving him a nudge that silently means _thank you for looping me back into the conversation_. He’s also not sure he disagrees. . . . No, he definitely _does_ agree, and it’s well past the time for misplaced loyalty to his old side. 

Umbriel glances between the two of them and gulps her tea with a self-conscious air. It must be odd to watch an angel and a demon be openly affectionate with one another, but honestly, after the encounter with Michael and Gabriel, Aziraphale can’t find it in himself to care. At least she’s being polite about it. Perhaps her contact with humans has been an adequate primer in accepting things for what they are. 

“I should get going,” she says, politely differential. The mug in her hands is nearly empty. “You’ve both been quite generous with your time, and I appreciate that, but I do have messages that need to be delivered. Just . . . it seemed only right you should know that you're not without friends in Heaven, Aziraphale, whatever the official party line might be.”

* * *

Crowley hangs back a bit, hands in his pockets, watching from the back room doorway while Aziraphale sees the other angel out of the shop. As far as he’s concerned, Umbriel is alright. He would think that of anyone with the balls to show up and metaphorically offer a discrete fist-bump for pointing out that the archangels have sticks up their asses—if only for the gratitude that had welled up in Aziraphale’s eyes when she’d said he still had friends in Heaven. 

It’s interesting, watching his angel interacting with a colleague (low rank be blessed) and not feeling the old familiar mix of jealousy, resignation, and wistfulness. 

. . . Well. Feeling it less, anyway. Crowley has always known that these quiet words of faith and blessing are an area of Aziraphale’s life that he can never really be a part of. That hasn’t changed, but after everything that’s happened since Armageddon he’s starting to feel more at peace with that. 

When Umbriel is gone, they both drift closer to each other like magnets. Opposites attract—or sometimes not-so-opposites. At any rate they settle comfortably into each other’s gravity, the stately celestial embrace of binary stars. 

“Have I ever looked that smug?” Aziraphale asks. 

The question surprises a laugh out of Crowley. “Angel, how could you ask that? No, of course not.”

“Oh good, I was worried—”

“You’re usually _far_ more smug than that, when you have a mind to be,” Crowley continues with a smirk. He reaches out and snags Aziraphale by the front of his waistcoat and reels him in, close enough to nip at the resulting pout and then kiss him soundly. “And you wear it better than anyone I’ve ever met,” he adds. “‘S one of the many reasons I love you so much.”

“Serpent,” Aziraphale mutters, visibly trying not to smile, and submits to another kiss. 

“You locked the door, right?” Crowley asks when they next part. “We’re not going to be interrupted?”

Aziraphale gives him a look from beneath pale, lowered lashes and murmurs, “Of course. No interruptions.” He starts to lean forward for another kiss, and reluctantly Crowley stops him with the tap of one finger against his tartan bow tie. 

“I still have something urgent to tell you, remember?”

“Oh!” A flush races across Aziraphale’s cheeks. “Oh, I completely forgot.” A thought obviously occurs to him, and suddenly he goes ashen pale, and his hand—when had that wandered into Crowley’s hair?—starts to tighten in panic. Something of the expression reminds Crowley distantly of flickering flames and blackened books. “Did anything go wrong? Are you alright? Crowley, if you’re hurt and didn’t say anything while we had company simply out of pride—”

“Aziraphale, I’m _fine_ ,” he interrupts hastily, lest his head be ratcheted back by the hair until he’s staring at the ceiling. “Really.”

And he tells Aziraphale about Émmonos the obsessive compulsive imp. 

By the time he’s finished Aziraphale has calmed down again, gently stroking the hair he’d just accidentally yanked on. “I see,” he says thoughtfully. “So. There are demons that want to talk to you and angels that want to talk to me. They’re not supposed to, and yet.”

“Exactly!”

Aziraphale blinks. “Exactly what?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “What you were saying before. The other day, whenever. About what’s on the tin, and humans being put on Earth to teach free will by example.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says again, much more slowly than before. “Oh I see. . . . Some on both sides are beginning to catch on. They’re interested in us as more relatable examples than any human ever could be, even if they don’t necessarily realize that’s why. And it makes sense that it would start with those who have already been around humans more on their own. . . .”

“Yeah,” says Crowley, who would happily watch the wheels of his angel’s brilliant mind turn through those clear blue eyes for years at a time if he could. “You were right, angel, it looks like we still have work to do.” 

“For Our Side this time,” Aziraphale agrees with a smile. “Perhaps we should introduce our new acquaintances to each other, what do you think? Another angel and demon pair to get just the right blend of perspective.”

“What are we, matchmakers now?”

“Perhaps.” Aziraphale chuckles, and his fingers tangle intentionally in Crowley’s hair in a way that makes him want to melt. “But we’re lovers first and foremost, enjoying our retirement together. Anything beyond what we are to each other is more of a part time job. We don’t need to sort everything out right this minute.”

 _Lovers_. If it could, Crowley’s heart would happily leap out his mouth and crawl into place on his sleeve on its own power. Instead he settles for catching Aziraphale’s mouth in a kiss, wordlessly bursting with excitement at the name that’s just been put to their relationship, real and unambiguous and glorious. More than he could have ever hoped for. 

Then Aziraphale’s other hand finds his and gives a gentle tug, at both hand and hair. Crowley can help neither the gasp nor the goosebumps. 

“I have something I’d like to show you, dearest,” Aziraphale murmurs, and leads him carefully up the stairs, neither hand letting go. Crowley is helpless but to follow. It would be embarrassing, how smitten he is, if the freedom to show it without worry or reservation hadn’t been so long in coming. 

They stop on the landing, in front of a door that Crowey is sure hadn’t been there that morning. 

Aziraphale lets go and stands back with an excited little grin, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet in anticipation. “Go on, open it.”

“What is this, angel, Christmas morning?” Crowley asks while reaching for the doorknob. He’s doing his damnedest not to grin back like an idiot. “If you’ve gotten me a puppy. . . .”

He trails off, partly because he had no particular plan for how to finish that sentence but mostly because he’s got the door open and his jaw is too busy dropping to form words. 

The room has round windows and is, of course, covered in books. Unlike downstairs, however, they’re limited to the built-in bookshelves that completely obscure the walls. The ornate rug on the parquet floor is a swirl of blues so dark the overall effect is black, studded with pinprick constellations of stars. He takes off his sunglasses to stare and immediately notes that the constellations are accurate—a nice touch for Aziraphale to put in, just for him. 

And then there’s the canopy bed. It dominates the room, all dark, sensuously carved wood. The two pillars at the foot of the bed start out square with reaching, rootlike designs, and halfway up round into organically shaped saplings. Apple trees, if he had to guess from the leaves carved into the canopy, and when he tilts his head to peer underneath he can see fruit in the exquisitely done ceiling panels. The headboard is just as grand, with feathered wings folded to each side and two arches in relief above the pillows that are wound round by climbing snakes. As for the bed itself, he recognizes the blankets and sheets from the nest they’d miracled into existence together over the past week. 

“Aziraphale,” he manages to say. It comes out hushed, the way most humans might speak inside a cathedral. 

“Do you like it?”

How the angel has apparently managed to imagine he might not, Crowley will never know. He reaches out and pulls Aziraphale into the room with him by the waistcoat, nudging the door closed behind them with a gesture and delighting in the realization that the inner side is _also_ a bookshelf. Once closed the doorway is hidden completely, the whole of the universe shut out of sight, out of mind in this space that’s solely theirs. 

Walking backwards, Crowley continues to tug Aziraphale towards the bed. “I more than like it. You made it; I _love_ it.” His free hand is already moving to tug the tartan scarf from around his neck—which itself is a testament to how much he loves his angel, that he’s kept it on for this long. “It’s going to be like fucking on a throne.”

“It is a bit decadent, isn’t it,” asks Aziraphale, blushing even as he’s working at removing his bowtie, his movements mirroring Crowley’s eagerness. 

“It’s _perfect_ ,” Crowley insists. His legs bump against the bed and he happily falls backwards onto it. Aziraphale is helpless but to follow, despite the fact that Crowley has let go of his waistcoat so as not to tear it. The angel might be embarrassed by how impatient he clearly is—patience is a virtue—but he’s always been a bit of a hedonist. More than a bit, sometimes. Crowley loves that about him. He loves _everything_ about Aziraphale, down to the way he clambers to get on top of him and nearly misses the mattress with his knee for trying to take his shoes off at the same time. 

Their lips meet again and later neither would be able to say how Aziraphale managed to get his shoes off in the end except that it wasn't by miracle. Neither of them are quite sure how they've managed any of this, really, but Crowley, for once, doesn’t feel like questioning it, because . . . 

. . . It really is perfect. 

* * *

The most peculiar thing happens at the onset of evening, just as the first fingers of shadow begin to seep tentatively into London. It’s before the streetlights have clicked on for the night to banish them. On the street outside of A.Z. Fell and Co., a middle-aged woman pauses on the pavement. She glances up towards the second story windows (which are square on the outside) with an ineffable twinkle in her clear gray eyes. 

“ **Well done, the pair of you,** ” she murmurs. She means, of course, far more than just the fact that the bookshop’s occupants have finally managed to get the last remaining buttons undone. It’s been six thousand years, but the next stage of Her plan is finally set. Soon, a new act will begin. 

She continues down the street, a bounce in her step, on her way to an appointment with a philosophy professor and his prized pupil. It’s a family reunion of sorts, and there’s still miles to go before She sleeps. 

* * *

1Such as, to name an example completely at random, shagging on every available surface as only two supernatural beings with a very loose understanding of human refractory periods and ages of sexual and emotional tensions might manage. Return to text

2And if Aziraphale seems too tickled pink by the notion of being a good influence, the phrase “shacking up” should be enough to get him pouting primly again. Makes his lips look even more precious and kissable, in Crowley’s opinion. Return to text

3It would be more accurate to say that all demons do, in fact, have issues with their mother, aka God. This was rather lost on Freud while he was alive, and he was at first confused when he found himself sorted into the Sixth Circle along with the heretics; the demons there had been more than happy to educate him. Return to text

4For shades of indigo, senna, and red, respectively. Return to text


End file.
